Kitchen Garden Forum

I have heard that, to keep your water butt free of the midge larve that you should put a few fish in - has anyone heard of this or knows more I would be interested.

I've heard Bob Flowerdew say he has a few goldfish in a water butt. I've considered doing it but my water butt gets quite low and stagnant. I should think you'd need a pretty regular supply of water going in to keep it aerated too. You could try it and if the fish start to suffer - usually they'll start to 'gulp' at the surface of the water - then you could take them out again.

Having just got another large watertank 150ltr+ next to my greenhouse, Ive just tried this idea. I've put some oxegenating weeds in the bottom, and have Fred the goldfish keeping the midge population down. I was a bit worried he wouldn't have enought to eat, but he seems quite happy so far, and also eats centipedes that I get from my compost bins! I wonder if I can tempt him with slugs...

Just been down the local aqatic centre and they have recommended some fish which love the larve, are resistant to temperature fluctuations and feed from the top - middle and bottom (I am informed this is good).
So I bought three for each of the 210 Litre butts which are currently full from the recent rain, also a little oxygenating weed too.

Phew, no mention of Richard Gere..

That sounds really cute keeping fish in your water butt. I'll be interested to hear if they like it. I'm presuming you can't have a lid on if you have fish?

That was hamsters, I think.

Yup, looks like the lid will be off but I will put a wire mesh cover to stop leaves getting in.

Hi Deb,
Centipede's are gardeners friends so by feeding them to the encarserated fish you do your garden and yourself a disfavour. Now Millepede's a different matter.
Centi. is carniverous and will even attack young slugs. Milli. is vegetarian and does a lot of harm to plants.

Which ones are the yellow sort?

Hi Chantal,
The Millipede's are black. The good guys come in anything from almost white to a very dark orange and have less legs.There is also a Pill Millipede a bit similar to a curled up Woodlouse.

Right, so the orange jobs I've found in my greenhouses are my friends then. Bummer, I was wanging them out of the door into the borage...

Eeek, will stop aforementioned practice immediately. Now feel very guilty, I thought they were baddies too!

Trevor Holloway wrote:I have heard that, to keep your water butt free of the midge larve that you should put a few fish in - has anyone heard of this or knows more I would be interested.

well, i was sitting on the bench in the garden with the missus.and on looking at all the water butts i reminded her of last year when we were being eaten alive by midge.so i mentioned putting a goldfish in each of them to eat the larve,she then turned and said i couldnt do that as it was cruel,so i asked her why that was.imagine my total disbelief when she said the water was to deep in them .i couldnt believe it .think she thought they might sink to the bottom

when i was in my first childhood we kept a goldfish or two in some cattle troughs . they fed on the green gunge on the sides and lasted for years. that was with chlorinated mains water but probably with a maximum of 100 gallons a day throughput and lengthy periods of no use.

There has been a lot of research recently on gold fish and cattle water troughs. It has been found they help reduce algae loads and maintain good water quality.

It is now fairly common practice on both sides of the atlantic to do this but only use the bog standard non fancy gold fish.

Jerry

I've also heard that you can put a couple of teaspoons of cooking oil in the water but (but not if you are putting goldfish in as well!).

The oil forms a film on the surface of the water which clogs up the breathing tube of the mosquito/midge larvae.