My outdoor tubs

[Thriftyfisher]

Below are pictures of my tubs from this summer I am going to be taking them down tomorrow so I thought I would take and share some pictures of them today.  I try to breed two species of fish in each tub. 

The tub on the left has Zebra obliquidens (Astatotilapia latifasciata) and Pseudomugil gertudae rainbows.  I have fry from both but in order for the rainbow fry to survive I had to bring them inside otherwise they tend to disappear. 

The tub on the right has Pseudotropheus sp. "Acei", Gymnogeophagus “el norte” and Alfaro huberi.  I know I have fry from the Acei and the huberi but I am not sure about the “el norte.”  I think that I will put the el norte out if there are no fry as they should be good for another 4 weeks or so before it gets to cold.  The one issue I have is the sudden disappearance of about 20 huberi fry.  I am not sure if a bird got them or something else happened to them.

This was a great year for fish outside.  I am very eager to see how many fry from each tub I will have.

[GrizzlysDad]

Very cool...I will have to get some pics of the pond on my deck.

[Frenchie]

I had ducks in mine last year, So i just put goldfish in this year. The color is so nice. I wish it would last.

[Thriftyfisher]

Yeah birds can mess up a pond.  I just cleaned my tubs.  30 Zebra fry which isn't bad.  No Huberi fry and only 6 Acei fry.  That is the one that is tuff.  2 weeks ago I had dozens of them and dozens of Huberi fry.  I think next year I will plan on taking down each tub at least 2 times.  Once in July and once in September.  That way I will not have the problem of birds getting my fish.  Both the Acei and the Huberi fry tended to stay at the top.  The zebra fry never ventured very close to the top and therefore were not a target to be eaten.

I still have my pond to go and there are a lot of fry still in there, no Cichlids this year just Allotoca goslinei and cherry/green shrimp.  I will take it down next week as they like the cooler temperatures.

[gmaschke]

Just put some type of mesh top on it to keep the birds out.

[Ron]

Looks nice. What size are the tubs? How do you control temperature?

[SKISWETPETS]

Thats a pretty cool idea... Sounds like it worked for ya.

[tnnsman7]

How early do you put them out? This would have been a good summer for it. Last time I tried it a few years ago it was way too cool and didn't work too well.

[Thriftyfisher]

This was a cold spring.  I didn't put the Acei out until the second or third week of May.  At that point I used a 200watt heater on some of the cooler nights just to be safe.  I didn't get the other Tub until mid June and had it set up by the end of June, I had to seal some holes in the bottom before I could use it. 

The pond had fish in it at the beginning of May but they prefer the cold water so it wasn't a problem.

Two years ago was a cold summer and a disaster for my fish as well.  If I think it is going to be a cool summer in the future I will use fish like the Gymnogeophagus that like the cooler temps.

[Frenchie]

I may try and leave mine up all winter with a heater, And what happens this time. Few years back they got really big and the color is so good.

[Thriftyfisher]

That woud be cool but how much doe that cost to keep the water warm enough?  I would think that it woud lbe very costly and you would have to add water every day to account for evaporation.