:mellow: Rosy red minnows are flourishing in my “Habitat Water Garden”. I have developed this, National Wildlife Federation Certified habitat, in a 30’x60’ backyard, half of which is driveway and garage. I have built four ponds. These ponds include an 8’x 4’pond and 2 smaller ponds as well as a “river” 16’by 2’. My concern is that as the minnow grow in size and population they will over populate the ponds. I had thought I’d transfer many of them to local ponds and lakes. However, your comment about their brief lives in a natural setting gives me pause. I thought that they would repopulate those sites. Do you think they would live long enough to breed and establish viable populations? I would appreciate your insight on this topic. My e-mail address is [removed by Robyn for privacy].

I thank you in advance;

Welcome to the forum!

If your ponds are natural, then nature and predators will keep the rosy red population in check. I have never had to remove fish. It is not a good idea to release rosy reds in to the wild. Even if the fathead minnows are native to your area, they may not have been in a particular body of water. Also, rosy reds are an orange variant that won't last long in the wild. In my states, it's illegal to release fish to the wild. The rosy reds probably carry various parasites, bacteria, etc. which they could introduce to the wild. If you really need to get rid of some of the rosy reds, then try your local watergarden club and see if someone else would like some. It's hard to get healthy rosy reds as store-bought ones are almost always very sick. So ponders would like some healthy ones.

Good luck!

Hi Chananperkel,

I have have heard of the National Wildlife Federation, what does it mean to get a habitat certified by this organization?



Danielle

My habitat is also certified. It's for those in the US. Here's a link:

http://www.nwf.org/gardenforwildlife/creat...033ABF3F63EF1A7

i want some more rosy minows