Use Of Goldfish In Argiculture

[Dart]

Hello everyone,

While in one of my agriculture courses, we talked about the use of goldfish in water troughs of cows and horses. They said that the goldfish eat the algae in the water trough and keep it really clean. And that the fish survive for a long time.

I've never heard of this before and i thought goldfish didnt eat algae so now i'm very confused, so i thought i'd ask you guys on here if you ever heard of it or if it would even work.

 

[OohFeeshy]

Actually, now you come to mention it, when we went to Staunton Country park they had two goldfish in one of the water troughs.

 

[bunjiweb]

If there is nothing else to eat they might be forced to eat small ammounts of algae but they are more likely to live off the small insects that breed in the trough. And besides, surely the algae will actually do something to keep the water trough clean?

Ben

 

[smooth_bourbon]

The barn I used to take lessons at had goldfish in their watering troughs. The fish did live for a couple years. They actually cleaned up after the horses, all the half chewed grain and grass that would end up at the bottom of the water troughs.

 

[black angel]

Carp are grazing animals and survive on algae, insects, other smaller fish and plant roots. So really its quite feasible for this to work as they need algae in the diet.

 

[Dart]

but would they get enough aeration out of the water?

 

[akudewan]

Why goldfish? Some other more hardy fish may be better, like some livebearers maybe?

 

[littleimp]

Not much different to a small ponds that thousandsof goldfish habitat throughout the country.