barbel in garden ponds

[butiaboy]

do's anybody keep barbel in garden pond as i am thinking of adding a small group 3 fish to my native fish pond do they do alright in a pond environment?

[Chris Goddard]

Not seen them in small ponds YET! But seem to do OK in all the stillwaters I have ever seen so reason to doubt it? But prepare yourself for some FLACK from the PURISTS mind!!

 

Thsi your thread too??

 

http://www.anglersnet.co.uk/forums/index.php?showtopic=61275

Edited August 25, 2007 by Chris Goddard

[ahammond]

Not so much flak but personally I cannot really see the point in keeping Barbel in a garden pond. They are dark coloured, and tend to feed on the bottom. Which sort of defeats the main point of keeping fish in a pond which is to be able to see them. I would have thought that unless you have a good sized pond that they will be a pretty difficult species to keep bearing in mind their potential size. But as I say not flak just observation and if you have the facilities to keep them why not?

[Steve Walker]

Not really a "purist" point of view, but from an animal welfare angle a garden pond is a long way from a barbel's natural habitat. Unless you've got some kind of high flow, well filtered top end koi setup (and even then...) I'd say it's a bit of a rotten thing to do to a fish that belongs in a clean, fast flowing river. Like keeping a husky in a one bedroom flat and never walking it.

[RobStubbs]

Not really a "purist" point of view, but from an animal welfare angle a garden pond is a long way from a barbel's natural habitat.

 

That's exactly the same argument for not keeping barbel in lakes and ponds. But they survive very well in them. I would suggest it's a waste of time though if you ever want to see them, because they will dissapear in any ordinary sort of pond.

 

Rob.

[Steve Walker]

I'd prefer that they weren't put into lakes and ponds either, for much the same reasons, but the stability of water quality is largely related to volume. I have less of an issue with (for instance) the stocking of barbel into Ardingly Reservoir than into some muddy commercial puddle. At least a large reservoir is likely to have decent water quality, high oxygen levels and significant currents. A garden pond is just wrong. If you put them into a decent koi setup you'd be able to see them, but it would still be a pretty poor habitat for them.

[Guest Rabbit]

That's exactly the same argument for not keeping barbel in lakes and ponds. But they survive very well in them. I would suggest it's a waste of time though if you ever want to see them, because they will dissapear in any ordinary sort of pond.

 

Rob.

You obviously dont know to much about barbel then...barbel need fast gravel runs to spawn, probably not too many fast gravel runs in a pond or lake., to deprive the fish of a basic requirement ..to spawn is not right Agreed?

[peter mccue]

You obviously dont know to much about barbel then...barbel need fast gravel runs to spawn, probably not too many fast gravel runs in a pond or lake., to deprive the fish of a basic requirement ..to spawn is not right Agreed?

 

You obviously don't know much about garden ponds!

 

There are lots of ponds where species that breed in stillwater don't have the conditions to allow them to spawn successfully. I have a pond where the rudd breed prolifically as do the Goldfish, unfortunately my Roach & Orfe don't. However, they merely reabsorb the eggs & presumably the milt, then get on with their usual occupation of growing big, looking good & seemingly enjoying themselves or so I thought.....

 

Incidentally on the subject of Barbel, I have a small shoal of Gudgeon in my pond & they behave quite differently in stillwater than in running water. Mine spend a lot of time in the upper layers searching out, presumably, water louse as the sides of the pond are alive with them. this is despite having a healthy flow of water coming into the pond from the inlet, which one would suspect they would like to spend most of their time in, but they don't. This makes them very visible & fascinating to watch.

 

In a large well oxygenated pond, I'm sure Barbel would live quite happily, but I do think they may be a labour intensive pet with small room for error, so on this basis they are perhaps not suitable for a garden pond.

Edited September 8, 2007 by peter mccue