When purchasing six goldfish for my outdoor pond I somehow received a single red minnow in the bag by accident. All the goldfish died but the red minnow was fine. I bought a dozen more goldfish from a different store and they died too. Racoons hit my pond every night and I finally got sick of fighting them and drained the pond. Only the red minnow (who I've now named the Red Menace) survived. What a hearty little guy!

I put him in a fish bowl on my desk. It's about 1 1/2 gallons and I put about 5 strands of that free floating "oxygenating" plant in with him. There's also several pond snails that I saved from the pond. He eats well and seems fine if a little confined after having the run of the big outdoor pond.

Will this be OK? He's such a neat little fish with so much heart and personality. I'm not the aquarium type of person. Would the Red Menace be better off released into a nearby lake? I live in Berkeley, CA where the climate is very mild. Almost never freezing in the winter and not too hot in the summer.

I'm happy to keep him on my desk if the set up is OK. Anyone know if this is suitable? I don't want to endanger his life or make him miserable. What's best for him?

Thanks!

It's sad that you gave up on your pond. You could have netted or fenced it to keep out the raccoons. They make a mess in my pond almost every night too but my family won't let me fence in the ponds. I just keep repotting and putting things back into place.

Rosy red minnows can be very hardy. He/she may survive in the small tank for a while. Ideally, you would get a 10 gallon tank or larger and maybe a few friends for him as they are schooling fish when not breeding.

Rosy reds are not native to CA. The fish would survive if released but it's not a good idea. If you don't want to keep him, contact your local pond club. I'm sure somewhere there would take him.

See this web site for koi clubs in CA. There are 16 of them! That's just koi clubs, not ones that are generic water garden clubs. I don't have a single pond club in my entire state so you're very lucky! I don't know which of those is closest to Berkeley.

http://www.akca.org/clubs/clubmap.htm

Good luck with the Red Menace!

Thanks Robyn! I know of several ponds in parks and whatnot. Maybe that would be a good place to release him? I feel like he's too cool to stay cooped up in a fish bowl. And if I freed him in a contained koi pond then I guess he wouldn't be a danger to native species.

It's a drag that we gave up on the pond but it was such a battle and we never came up with a good looking, racoon proof barrier. We tried for 6 years to foil those darn little rascals. So when all the fish died we just said to heck with it. If I lived in a racoon free area I would always have one! They're so easy and beautiful.

Thanks again for your advice!

If you can find a pond that is contained (doesn't flow into natural waters) and have the permission of the owner, you can release the rosy red minnow into that pond. Alone, the little guy won't breed but he/she may meet up with others of his/her kind once out in the world.

I'm sorry about your raccoon problems. I don't think they're native to CA either? Did you ever try fencing the whole pond area in? If my family let me, I'd do that. Our raccoons are just the cutest things but boy do they get into trouble. Every morning, I have to try to fix what they did the night before. Last night, they turned off one small pump and knocked over another but weren't too bad (no dumped pots or animals laying around).