# water barrel question



## luke4275 (Aug 3, 2013)

My barrel can hold probably 35 gallons and I clean it often but it has some scale that will not come off. no big deal,, no algae etc. A new boarder brought an even bigger water bucket and has fish inside to clean up who knows what. anyone know of this? type of fish. etc?


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## churumbeque (Dec 20, 2009)

Yes, fish will eat the alge


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## Blue (Sep 4, 2011)

Lol, yeah we had gold fish in our big tank in the pasture. They did a great job of keeping it clean.... until fall came. In our neck o' the woods fall is kinda funny. Days are sunny warm and the nights are crazy cold. Gold fish don't take to that. But it really works if you just start all over each spring.


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## Phly (Nov 14, 2012)

We have a 110 gallon and put gold fish in it every spring. It really helps. Gold fish don't have spines on their fins so if a horse sucks one up its no big deal. And that does happen. Seen my horse suck one up and then spit it back into the trough! Was hilarious!


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## stevenson (Sep 12, 2011)

we use mosquito fish . they do not hurt the horses if they eat them, I had one horse that went after them, like apple bobbing. If I put ten in a day, the lasted about 2 days. 
as for some of the scale , when i clean I use a bit of bleach, smear it around , let it sit for a while, scrub , rinse. It sometimes takes more than one cleaning to get rid of the scale. Plus any little bit of residue should not be harmful , because you can use around a tsp per gall of water to clean water for drinking.


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## Blue (Sep 4, 2011)

stevenson said:


> we use mosquito fish . they do not hurt the horses if they eat them, I had one horse that went after them, like apple bobbing. If I put ten in a day, the lasted about 2 days.
> as for some of the scale , when i clean I use a bit of bleach, smear it around , let it sit for a while, scrub , rinse. It sometimes takes more than one cleaning to get rid of the scale. Plus any little bit of residue should not be harmful , because you can use around a tsp per gall of water to clean water for drinking.


What are mosquito fish? To clean the tanks and water buckets i generally just use a steel bristle scrub brush.


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## gssw5 (Jul 30, 2013)

We had a gold fish in one of our tanks for a couple years, it got to be about 12 inches. It was hysterical when the horses would be drinking and the fish would come up and touch them. We never had any mosquito larva in the tank.

Then one day one of our ducks removed it from the tank and we found it dead in the driveway.


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## Blue (Sep 4, 2011)

gssw5 said:


> Then one day one of our ducks removed it from the tank and we found it dead in the driveway.


:-cry:
Those darn ducks! They could have at least eaten it.


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## stevenson (Sep 12, 2011)

they are little silver fish that eat the larvae. It gets hot here, and the mosquitoes breed in every little puddle they can find and water troughs need dumped almost every day in the summer . so the fishes eat em up !


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## Blue (Sep 4, 2011)

We have a huge problem with mosquitos as well. Being near a river we're quite humid. Can I get this little silver fish at a pet store? Or are they ordered somewhere?


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## SueNH (Nov 7, 2011)

Feeder guppies work fine. Very closely related to mosquito fish. They won't survive if the water drops below 55 for very long though. There is also a little feeder fish they sell that is often label tuffies. They are a little albino version of a hardy minnow. The albino part makes it hard for them to hide from predatory fish in aquariums. They are winter hardy even up in New England.

I find it easier to dump the trough and hose it out but I live in a place where I can play with water all I want.

Most native minnows will eat mosquito larvae. Got a stream?


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## stevenson (Sep 12, 2011)

Blue, not sure, we get ours free from the Mosquito Abatement that is here in town. i will try to find a name for the fish and let you know.


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## Blue (Sep 4, 2011)

Thanks!


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## stevenson (Sep 12, 2011)

*Gambusia affinis*) are small fish in the guppy family, which are used extensively throughout the world by mosquito control agencies for control of mosquito larvae. A single adult mosquito fish can eat up to 500 mosquito larvae a day.


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## Blue (Sep 4, 2011)

Thank you! I've got that bookmarked for spring


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## natisha (Jan 11, 2011)

What happens to all the fish poo?


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## stevenson (Sep 12, 2011)

lol, it will either settle to the bottom or the drink it. Yum. (gag) 
I never noticed the fish poo , but never had a horse get sick from it, that I know of.
I don't think the guppies are as dirty as the goldfish, and that the mosquito larvae and bugs are worse than a little guppy poo.


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## SueNH (Nov 7, 2011)

Lot of the old timers up here used to throw a trout in the house well to keep it clean. I don't think that's a plan though. A few little fish that are under an inch vs. a big fish like a trout. Ick!

Unbelievable Well Stories


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## ZaneyZanne123 (Nov 9, 2013)

The scale is from high mineralization in the water. It collects in the various places around the tank, If they are bad I take a metal scraper and scrape off some. Harder water will cause this. I live in central KY and Lime/calcium is a problem in water here. Some places are better than some. My aquarium gets lime build up and etc and I simply scrap it off from time to time. 

A couple of feeder type goldfish do work well in larger tanks, they eat mosquito larva and other larva and some will eat minimal amounts of free floating algea.


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## DarElBeck (Oct 23, 2014)

How do you prep the water for the fish? I once knew someone who had koi in theirs but I never asked.


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## DraftyAiresMum (Jun 1, 2011)

DarElBeck said:


> How do you prep the water for the fish? I once knew someone who had koi in theirs but I never asked.


You don't. You just toss the fish in. I wouldn't be adding any water treatment to the water (like dechlorinator or the like), as I'd be afraid it would be toxic for the horses.

We were out trail riding once and stopped at a cattle tank to water the horses and eat lunch. There were two or three 10+ goldfish in the old rusted tank. My friend's Arab gelding thought they were fun to play with. Aires wasn't so sure. I have pics somewhere. It was hilarious. The tank was never cleaned or emptied. It just had a constant supply of water via well and windmill.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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