JKB -- thanks for that info. I see that the sale goes well into January. Once the holiday rush is over, I'm hoping they still have some in stock.
Several years ago I set my son and grand-kids up with an aquaponics tank made from a 400 gallon IBC container. It has been successful beyond imagination for things like tomatoes, peppers, spinach, lettuce, etc. The fish just have never thrived the way I had hoped, and that has included talipia, bluegill, fatheads, etc. The only ones that did reasonably well have been green sunfish -- until this season.
This year, about a week before my wife and I went on a 3-week vacation, I gave them a number of very healthy 3-5 inch green sunfish, and a bunch of rosie-red minnows for the tank. Something went wrong, and they all died. Since we were gone, my son and youngest granddaughter went to the local pet store and got some $0.09 goldfish. The 1-inch goldfish thrived. The garden thrived.
When it came time to shut the system down in October, my son called and asked what he should do with the goldfish. I said flush them down the toilet into the septic tank. He said they probably wound't fit down the toilet! Plus, he said they were really beautiful, and then my granddaughter appealed to me!
I actually took the backhoe and dug a double-S shaped pond, that is about 4-foot wide, 30 feet long, and about 4 feet deep in most places. But, when they brought them to the farm, I decided I couldn't even put them in their wonderful new pond. They were too pretty, and too friendly. Nobody even named them, which has been a rule that goes back at least to my grandfather's farm so that things like this aren't supposed to happen.
So, now I've got four overly friendly goldfish living in my basement. They get real excited when they see me. They are taking up most of the surface of my butchering bench. They range from 5-1/2 inches to almost 7 inches. I have two each, in two separate 5 gallon aquariums.
I guess a 55 gallon tank is in their future and mine.
As an aside, they don't like ESSHUP's feed. They are kind of OK with Lil' Strike, but they go crazy for TetraFin Goldfish Flakes, which is $7.95 for 2.2 oz. That works out to nearly $60 a pound when tax is included!
PETS!!!
Merry Christmas to all, and may your goldfish thrive in the new year!
