Well, my local river (the St. Johns in Jacksonville Florida) gets schools of mullet every year. Well, really, it clears up enough to see the mullet at one time during the year. Anyways, several years ago, I would cast net mullet and put them in my outdoor pond with my goldfish. They survived really well until my pond got raided by otters. However, a few days ago, I managed to net a few and put them in my pond (the pond is currently being restocked after the otter invasion). They seemed to be doing well at first, then something went wrong. The next morning they were swimming around happily, but that afternoon, they were all dying. I put them back in the river, and they seemed to do a little better. My main question is what might have caused this? Was it the shock from the lowered salinity? The fact that I didn't manage to catch enough for a school? The fact that I really had no way to acclimate them? The oddest thing was that this time, they did well for about 18 hours, then all of the sudden, they were gone. Despite being kind of drab, these are one of my favorite fish, mainly because of the fact that they eat algae, and they look like a school of battleships around my newly bought goldfish (It was pretty funny watching one of the larger ones trying to school with the goldfish, which he was twice as long as. He would get into the center of the school then the goldfish would sort of skit away. He made the goldfish look tiny. He was about 3-4 inches long I would say) . I would appreciate any insight to what caused the problem, because I really would like to keep these fish.
PS: I do know that these fish are jumpers, however, after the initial introduction, none of them seemed to try to jump in the past.
PSS: The pond has been running for several weeks with the goldfish, so I doubt that the slight additional bioload would cause an ammonia spike. I only managed to capture 2 mullet when I put them in.
PS: I do know that these fish are jumpers, however, after the initial introduction, none of them seemed to try to jump in the past.
PSS: The pond has been running for several weeks with the goldfish, so I doubt that the slight additional bioload would cause an ammonia spike. I only managed to capture 2 mullet when I put them in.
