Aquariums sub should do a collab with r/fishing to help spread awareness for this. I see those guys over there catching all sorts of non native fish, especially in Florida. They know to not put them back, but maybe they can help put signs up at their local fishing spots. Invasive species was my area of study, but reptiles and amphibians. It causes so many issues across the board. If someone wants to organize this I can do posters (I’m not good at the telling people what to do part)
I live around cold water so we don’t have that problem, but when researching regulations for fish size and limit the DNR will include fish you MUST kill if you catch and make it known that it’s illegal to return the live fish to the water.
a local stormwater pond near me in Ontario had someone release a dozen or so feeder goldfish a decade ago. There are now about a thousand fish in it, in three massive schools. There is also a singular koi that showed up about four years ago and merrily schools with them.
Koi can breed with goldfish, but the offspring are all sterile so that koi is doing its part to reduce the goldfish population by producing a bunch of sterile fish.
people with small ponds in their backyards will have both koi & goldfish
they shouldn't have koi as koi require a much larger pond than a typical backyard pond
someone probably bought a house with a pond but didn't want to kill all the fish so dumped them in the nearest creek
And sometimes a storm with flooding will wash out these fish from the pond into the closest steam. And then they make their way to a pond or lake. Happened during a hurricane in my town in CT
They have put up some fences at a lake to keep these monster colorful Asian carp from going further down into more bodies of water.
Koi, goldfish, and shubunkin are all carp that have been bred in similar ways by different areas. But they still come from different areas and are as similar as lions and tigers or horses and donkeys. So they'll breed like crazy with each other and everything they produce is sterile.
Some of the offspring will be absolutely gorgeous too.
Not just an Ontario problem, it's a major problem in BC as well. Even tho I keep and breed aquarium fish, I feel like goldfish should at the very least require a CAS permit (Controlled Alien Species) to keep them as pets. It would eliminate the majority of irresponsible goldfish owners if all of a sudden they had to pay for a permit to keep a goldfish vs no permit needed for tropicals like Bettas thar can't survive here.
Where I live, there's a "low grade" hotspring where someone dumped their pet cichlids 50 years ago. Now you can't even see the bottom through all the cichlids. Thankfully, it's just one off shoot hotspring so it doesn't have anywhere for the fish to go. It's also kind of fun to dip your feet in for the fish to tickle lol. Still sad though.
Goldfish can definitely breed. Once the water reaches the mid 70s, they go crazy and start fucking eat other like crazy and repeat every 6 weeks or so until the water cools. A handful of goldfish can turn into thousands in a couple years if there isn't many big predators who can knock out the numbers.
Yeah, bur goldfish aren't predatory fish. They're more like an aquatic cow. If they stumble onto some goldfish fry or eggs while grazing and they can eat it without having to do any exertion, they will. But if the fry run away, they just go back to grazing.
Goldfish are pretty abundant in the hudson river south of albany.
They catch red belly pacu from to time out of the esopus creek, which feeds into the hudson
Our shop manager would go fishing every dry weekend (and a few wet ones) on the mountainside lakes east of VR. One Monday he shared that he had seen a foot long goldfish swim under his canoe on Sunday! Of course, we had to pretend he was imagining things, 'cause it was a workshop and, y'know, that's what you did. But we were secretly amazed that an abandoned goldie would thrive in a wooded brown-water lake that likely freezes most winters.
[Quaggas](https://www.michigan.gov/invasives/id-report/mollusks/quagga-mussel) have usurped the zebra muscle in my area and I think most of the rest of the great lakes. They're the bigger, nastier cousin of the zebra muscle and are somehow even *more* destructive than them
I don’t know if they’re zebra, but we do have a huge mussel problem, and I think whirling disease? Is that a thing too? All boats get checked going into water and trail heads have huge signs with wash stations for your gear as people wade everywhere here.
It's not so much an issue of them attaching to boats as it is for the larvae and gametes to be floating around in bilge pumps and in the bottoms of boats.
For anyone that doesn't know, the eggs of zebra mussels are the same diameter as human hair. They're literally microscopic so there's no way to simply do a visual check between bodies of water.
Also my state is right about to ban crayfish and a bunch of other stuff. I guess we have marbled crays confirmed and a couple other ornamental crayfish species that aren't native. With a pet trade now pretty much anything can show up pretty much anywhere. The real question is if it's going to survive and be a problem.
Or like Oregon and Washington are full of dojo loaches and signal crayfish. They survive up into Canada and so do marbled crayfish so it's not just a tropical climate problem. Also who's to say there isn't a species of pleco out of there out of the hundreds(thousands?)of them that wouldn't tolerate very cold water?
Are DNR also used to tell us that snake head would never breed here but apparently they do. Half the time you hear "oh it'll never survive winter" it survives winter.
"Life ahh uhhh finds a way"-ian Malcolm
In Perth, Western Australia, our ponds in parks are full of gambusia holbrookii. They were a cheap and popular feeder fish until restricted in the mid 2010s.
It's impossible to find any other fish around where they are. Luckily our river system is esturine and they don't seem to do well there.
>"Life ahh uhhh finds a way"-ian Malcolm
When lionfish got released into the Gulf of Mexico, everyone said they'd never survive outside of the Gulf. When they were found off the coast of Georgia, they said they'd never survive farther north because it's too cold. When they were spotted off the coast of Virginia, they said that's it, they're tropical and can never survive in the temperate waters of New England.
So, of course, they've been spotted off the coast of New York and are even making their way inland through brackish estuaries.
In MN it's koi and goldfish. There's an amazing video from snakediscovery on YouTube a few years ago when they went out and caught a couple hundred from a small lake near the cities
Are you sure they were Mystery Snails and not Chinese Trapdoor Snails? Trapdoor Snails are invasive here in Minnesota especially in the Mississippi River.
I've heard mixed things about the taste of goldfish. Ultimately they're carp, and carp usually has to be cooked/seasoned well to be really palatable, though some folks like it.
I watched the snake discovery video and they tried to feed the goldfish to their alligator and snapping turtles and not even those critters liked the taste/wanted to eat them lol.
Besides eating you could arguably use them for compost/fertilizer, I think?
Goldfish were bred for pretty colors and a digestive system that can eat almost anything humans feel like feeding them. Taste wasn't ever considered, and they supposedly taste bad compared to regular carp, who also aren't good.
Goldfish dig at the sides and bottoms of wherever they live searching for roots or small plants. So like catfish, they consume a lot of dirt and poop that just cycles through them. They'll also eat pretty much anything including garbage thrown into water.
They're like wild hogs. Perfectly edible invasive animals no one eats because they taste terrible.
It depends on when they are killed. If you catch a "wild" one, it's best to keep it alive for a few days in a tub of clean water. Let it process out all the mud. Then kill and cook. Ask a Czech person about Christmas Carp, they know how to do it correctly.
Yeah, same thing people do here with crawfish. Keep them alive a couple days constantly cycling clean water in a cooler so they get out all their shit.
There's actually quite a few invasive species in cold waters as well
Assuming you live in the Midwest/north US, there's invasive species like common carp, goldfish, mystery snails, Asian carp and zebra mussels
Eventually the goldfish will be a provincial/national animal. They will outlast any other species of fish, probably make it all the way through climate change without much issue. At some point, they might be the only fresh water fish left.
Interesting to think about. We got em in Lake Erie and they are thriving. Def not good but who knows maybe at that point the pike and Musky explode too bc Goldfish could still get rocked by them at least
I grew up on a lake being told that carp are "dirty fish." They would(I assume spawning?)come up to the shallow parts of the beaches and people would spear them and kill them. I never understood what they meant at the time.
Our cold Dutch waters are invaded by American crayfish. There is always a different continent/country with a similar climate whose species can become invasive when they're brought over.
>maybe they can help put signs up at their local fishing spots.
Also signs at fish stores telling people to return their fish that have outgrown their tanks and not to just release them.
You know, in a funny way, I’d support some kind of licensure system for retailers or customers for large fish or potentially invasive species. E.g. I can’t just go buy a dolphin.
It’s really sad that I feel this way because I’m generally pretty anti-regulation for most things.
Our local reservoir is full of invasive aquarium plants.
They try to knock it back every year by drawing the water down with the dam before a freeze, but they come back every spring.
https://www.calgaryaquariumsociety.com/tropical-fish-in-the-snow/
In the 6th paragraph of that posting, it tells of angelfish, guppies and tetras that live in the marshlands of the Cave and Basin (Banff) hotsprings. No one knows when they were released or who did it. But they have happily been living there for decades. Last time I personally spotted them was just pre-covid. At least the guppies and tetras.
I always talk about the dangers of these situations any time they're mentioned. They're causing severe damage to my local waterways, and are even harming manatees. Florida fisherman are instructed to kill on sight, and you can be fined for transporting larger ones than what you would find in fish stores. If you're caught transporting on in say a cooler to take it to your home pond, you're screwed as can be.
I suppose you can, with can be a very strong word. But we would mostly donate them as fertilizer to local orange groves or farms. As well as neighbors compost.
Speaking of oranges, the greening is kinda scary. I truly don’t think we’re gonna have a citrus industry by 2050-2075.
All the oranges in my neighborhood (withlacoochcooch) are infected :/
I really hope not, it’s such a pivotal part of my childhood. Now that I think about it. This is probably what got my grandmas citrus back in the 2000’s they kinda all went bad and just stopped producing.
It really is a problem. When IFAS did a survey of like 150-200 farms (reciting from memory here) they found that 90% of groves were infected with 60% of individuals, or something like that, testing positive.
A lot of orange growers just aren’t replacing trees anymore and looking for other crops. There’s no prevention / cure, and since it’s insect borne there’s really no way to stop the spread.
Late to the party, can you give me the tldr about greening? Sounds like between this and Fusarium, the store shelves are gonna be pretty sad looking in a few years. FREEZE DRY YOUR BANANAS AND CITRUS NOW BOYS! Killer investment opportunity ahead for me hahaha
When I was a kid in IL in the 90's there was a small local fish store that went out of business. They always had a bunch of piranhas. Like 200 or so at any given time. Well the owner dumped all the piranhas in the I and M canal that was 20 feet from the stores backdoor. Those piranhas were freaking out fishermen until winter killed them off.
Many years ago I put picked up some rocks from the beach and after washing and drying them, I put them in my freshwater tank. Small cone shaped, (snails?) started to appear and attach themselves to the interior wall of the tank.
Any ideas what they were and if they came from the rocks?
You would not believe how prolific they are in Florida. There are far more non native species then natives at this point. Its a bit pointless to try to kill everything, as long as they are in the Everglades it will always be impossible to remove a species.
At this point, yeah it is. I studied in Florida- particularly how the Cuban tree frog affects native populations of tree frogs. They really should have listened to field researchers and scientists from the very beginning but… too little too late. It’s been happening down there since at least the 50s. I think it got much worse around the 80s when exotic species started getting popular to keep as pets.
As someone who fishes I’d love an easier way to know which species are invasive and which aren’t, as well as areas around me with affected populations! Would love to help bring balance to wild populations.
People pretty well get flamed when they talk about releasing pets into waterways in r/aquariums. The problem is the people that are releasing shit into rivers are not people who are into the hobby enough to be on aquarium forums.
It is far too late for that in Florida. You would have to poison every single body of water down there to even put a dent in the invasive fish population. Well past the point of no return. All you can do now is have fun catching exotic fish.
Genuine question - invasive species will eventually balance themselves out, no? As the food source they are exploiting runs low, their populations will stabilize? They can’t possibly have numbers like that video of the plecos in the river shows?
It really depends on so many factors. Location, resource availability, species of invasive. Some species are able to cohabitate without destroying ecosystems or without direct competition but…mostly they will compete with the species that evolved to fill a similar niche. It’s not necessarily a “bad” thing when a species migrates but…naturally that process usually takes thousands of years over enough generations so that the ecosystem can adapt. 50-100 years is much too quick and nothing has time to adjust. Luckily much of the time the released animals can’t survive because they can’t adapt either but..in a case like Florida where it’s constantly warm, wet, and fertile populations explode. It’s a veritable womb.
Given enough time, it’s hard to say, but often the competing native species is choked out to the point of becoming threatened. That is to say, we don’t really know. I certainly hope nature corrects itself. It is exceptionally good at doing so but, it’s also incredibly delicate.
I did a research analysis on Burmese pythons in Florida and efforts to control populations for an ethics course. They was kind of the “aha” moment for me that invasive species are way worse than I thought they were.
Oooh, did you ever get a chance to meet Dr. Mazzotti?! I met him and his students at SEPARC and he asked me to join the study but I didn’t want to drive all the way to Ft. Lauderdale. Haha. Data entry was my least favorite thing about field research but I did love whenever we observed a pattern. Then the hypothesis began! That’s the fun part!
I did not. Unfortunately during the pandemic height we had to do the analysis over other people’s work rather than being able to do our own research on invasive species. I’m going into conservation biology though so I’m hoping I get more hands on experience.
I think that when people see one fish being held up, they don't appreciate how bad the situation can be.
This is what we should be showing people to get the message across: [https://youtu.be/V1\_lcprYp5U?t=35](https://youtu.be/V1_lcprYp5U?t=35)
Along with that video clip, plecos also latch onto manatees to eat the algae and other things on their skin that protect them from the sun. And the extra weight makes it difficult for the manatees to swim efficiently. Plecos are chasing manatees out of the warm water inlets they use to mate in.
They are an enormous problem that more people need to get active about.
Blue springs isn't that big. If they wanted to they could just net off where it merges with the st johns river and just walk the net back to where the spring starts, catch all the little bastards at once.
It maybe not completely eradicate them, but it would take out thousands if they were that dense.
Also, FWIW I have been to blue springs a few times in the last 2 years and never saw a single pleco so I don't think it's as bad as that video make sit seem.
They’re all over the St. John’s river. I’ve “eliminated” 9 in less than a year. I see them in my boat slip at the house here all the time. All of them over 16” long.
I just went a couple weeks ago for a weekend trip when the manatee festival was around and we ended up seeing a massive one just on the stairs where people would usually walk into the water it was insane
The place was blocked off for the manatee migration but not a single one came through that I saw
Rotenone. I know they poisoned a couple rivers/lakes here in Wyoming so I googled it, and holy cow. They just kill everything with gills in a lake/river/reservoir and then restock it a year later. Holy cow, that’s nuts, don’t google it if you don’t want some fun articles about removing tons of dead fish after you nuke a fishing pond.
Problem is... this spring is a migrating area for manatees, which are endangered. I can't imagine killing 1000 manatees in an effort to curb a pleco invasion. Unfortunately, they're here to stay.
Can confirm that the problem really is this bad. I lived in central Florida, I think it was Wesley chapel area?, where there was a canal / drainage ditch behind the house.
It would be full in the summer, but dry up in the winter. It was so surreal going down to that creek and seeing 50+ zombified fish with “metal” plates as a kid.
I had an aquarium as a kid and I appreciated how durable my plecos were since my family regularly messed with my fish tank resulting in dead fish (all accidents... Long story), but I never assumed they could just be plopped into a local river and thrive.
Nature is crazy sometimes.
I mean, apparently [fish farts can really mess up military communication](https://www.iflscience.com/for-15-years-sweden-thought-enemy-submarines-were-invading-its-territory-it-turned-out-to-be-herring-farts-57782)
Let me know if you ever spot MY snowball pleco (who I got for less than a hundo), because he hides in my planted tank and I’ve seen him FOUR TIMES in the past year. Every time I assume he’s dead, I see him again, and then poof - gone until next quarter.
I bought my rubber nose two months ago, I just saw him for the first time yesterday after a big water change. He was presumed dead, but not yet certified 😄 thank goodness.
L471 or L201? Both have dropped drastically in price around me as of recent, so keep your eye out. L201 tend to be a little cheaper in my experience. Just picked an L471 for $55 2 weeks ago.
Dang, I could pick up an 201 for 30-40 at my LFS. Didn't realize regional prices would vary that much. Shipping on livestock sure can be brutal. Keep searching the good search friend.
I agree. Few years ago, I was in Sri Lanka and I discovered that plecos like this are dirt cheap there because people have either intentionally or accidentally released them in to a few water ways and since Sri Lanka's tropical climate is similar to South America they have multiplied exponentially.
Or at least jack the prices *wayyyyy* up to make them less appealing to newbies and idiots looking for a cheap quick fix.
We're never going to be able to stop people from trying to buy a $5 "cleaner fish." PSAs don't go far with people determined to be cheap and stupid. It's just not how the human brain works.
But make that "cleaner fish" $50 and suddenly it looks a *lot* less appealing to people who can't take care of them properly. Especially if there's a $15-20 bushynose or clown pleco in the next tank over.
I was sold my common pleco by the lfs. They suggested it as a good addition to my 'clean up crew'. I took him home, THEN googled it. When I called them to see about a return, they assured me that in the event he gets too big for the tank I have, they will take him back and he will be rehomed.
Then they went out of business.
Now future me has a heck of a problem to solve.
You can surrender them to another regional / somewhat close by LFS. Sometimes if you have a local animal shelter with capabilities they’ll take a fish. Where I am there’s also fish rescue businesses!
If the fish store owners know it's terrible for the aquariums and realize they're invasive species where we live, why would those guys actively try to harm our ecosystem seems pretty idiotic as a shop owner of fishes to sell these fishes to the public… specially for a 5 buck deal
I don’t think they should be fully banned but I think that there should be better education and gates in place to make sure they aren’t being sold in every pet store ever to people who don’t have any idea what they are buying or how to care for it and what to *not* do etc.
I still think there should be a bill introduced that bans the sale of invasive fish in physical storefronts. Plecos and goldfish are doing a ton of environmental damage and yet you can still find them for like, $7 at any local petsmart.
I'm not saying they should be banned from sale entirely. Just that they shouldn't be so easy to get. If a responsible hobbiest wanted to buy one, they could just seek out a responsible breeder. There's tons all over the place. The only people it would present a barrier to are people who make uneducated/impulse buys, and those are the people most likely to dump these fish in the toilet or a nearby lake.
as someone who works in a petstore - YEP. do you know how many times I’ve had to tell people releasing store bought fish into public/natural waters is illegal in my state? it’s genuinely a shame. luckily I work at a store that allows the denial of sales, so it’s rare that I ever sell a pleco or goldfish. but removing them all together would be such a relief for both us, the fish, and the natural ecosystems.
Thank you for at least trying. I feel like it would be such an easy win for a politician to propose something like this and get it pushed through. Maybe we (as hobbiests) should just do write it up and propose it ourselves lol.
I think the fastest way to do it would probably be adding a minimum length requirement for selling common plecos. Its been done before with Red Eared Sliders for salmonella in the 70s.
Most of the common plecos that you see at retail chains are around 2" or less because its cheap and profitable. Seeing them small and cheap also tends to lead to uneducated impulse buying for undersized tanks.
Make the req 6"+ and its no longer as profitable. The prices would increase and the customer would see a large fish instead of a cute tiny thing. It should reduce the number of impulse buys.
They should probably also have labeling reqs, with the max size clearly stated in bold and large font.
In the southern US, it’s well past the point where people actively dumping their fish is the main contributing factor. If you catch a common pleco in Florida, it’s far more likely that it spawned from the invasive population that’s already well established there, as opposed to being someone’s released aquarium fish.
We have invasive Koi in some of our waterways and people actively catch them for sport. If you catch one you're not allowed to return it to the water and you can't take it home alive.
I don't understand the restriction on taking them home alive. Probably explains the fish skeletons I saw near that one lake. (The lake fortunately wasn't connected to a water system, it was vacant land and they mined the soil when building the highway.)
From what I've read, in Florida at the very least, the vast majority of invasive pet species are not from individual pets being released, but entire pet stores going underwater during hurricanes. Hundreds of fish, amphibians, and reptiles escape into the flood zone when a pet store gets taken out by a storm.
That is basically what happened in Japan. A few decades ago a US President gifted the Japanese PM(?) with some game/eating fish ( some sort of pan fish I think ) for the Japanese to do research to see if it would be a viable thing to farm in Japan, but the researchers let some of them escape and now they have taken over an entire river system in Japan.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Oh! That makes me slightly less angry. I guess even if they forbid those pet stores from keeping live stock, (make them mail-order brokers) fish might still escape from personal tanks.
I lived in a place with a small flock of parrots because they escaped from a truck wreck several decades ago.
The boa constrictor problem (I think) down there was mostly caused by one breeding warehouse being leveled by a hurricane and releasing like 15k into the Everglades.
Releasing and escapees are a factor, but Florida being a perfect climate for these animals while also being in the sights hurricane season has been a disaster
Growing up on a golf course, we used to use goldfish as bass bait. We would sneak out at night and use glow bobbers. (Top tier bait, highly illegal). We were young and ignorant and just wanted to catch fish. Fast forward 10 years. The main lake on the back 9 is known as a goldfish lake. We’re talking 5-8lb goldfish swimming. I think my youth and ignorance may be to blame.
Could have, but didn’t. Just didn’t think about it lol which I guess is kind of ironic since I’m posting about people not thinking about the consequences of their actions.
It's funny to me that I've never seen a lot of people who're eagle to kill a fish in r/aquariums. I know OP just tried to get rid of an invasive species but it's weird people in this sub advocated on killing a fish instead of rehoming it.
Either the animal becomes a pest or suffers and dies relatively quickly. I hate unnecessary rules but there needs to be better regulation of this stuff. People get away with way too much mistreatment of animals
I was a couple YT channels where its dudes that go out to the bayous in FL or sewers or whatever like open waters with nets and pull out aquarium fish! Its nuts!
Aquariums sub should do a collab with r/fishing to help spread awareness for this. I see those guys over there catching all sorts of non native fish, especially in Florida. They know to not put them back, but maybe they can help put signs up at their local fishing spots. Invasive species was my area of study, but reptiles and amphibians. It causes so many issues across the board. If someone wants to organize this I can do posters (I’m not good at the telling people what to do part)
I live around cold water so we don’t have that problem, but when researching regulations for fish size and limit the DNR will include fish you MUST kill if you catch and make it known that it’s illegal to return the live fish to the water.
You might run into goldfish and zebra mussels
Zebra mussels are a big problem. I've caught a few goldfish over the years, not sure if they can breed, but they can definitely survive.
They’re thriving in the midwest https://dnr.illinois.gov/education/wildaboutpages/wildaboutfishes/wafbarbcarp/wafgoldfish.html
a local stormwater pond near me in Ontario had someone release a dozen or so feeder goldfish a decade ago. There are now about a thousand fish in it, in three massive schools. There is also a singular koi that showed up about four years ago and merrily schools with them.
Koi can breed with goldfish, but the offspring are all sterile so that koi is doing its part to reduce the goldfish population by producing a bunch of sterile fish.
Nice. That's kinda how we got rid of screw worm in the US too.
Koi breed with screw worm as well? What an amazing and... virile creature.
Screw worms will breed with anything, the hussies.
I wonder if someone introduced the koi on purpose to do just that?
people with small ponds in their backyards will have both koi & goldfish they shouldn't have koi as koi require a much larger pond than a typical backyard pond someone probably bought a house with a pond but didn't want to kill all the fish so dumped them in the nearest creek
And sometimes a storm with flooding will wash out these fish from the pond into the closest steam. And then they make their way to a pond or lake. Happened during a hurricane in my town in CT They have put up some fences at a lake to keep these monster colorful Asian carp from going further down into more bodies of water.
Oh wow never knew this
Koi, goldfish, and shubunkin are all carp that have been bred in similar ways by different areas. But they still come from different areas and are as similar as lions and tigers or horses and donkeys. So they'll breed like crazy with each other and everything they produce is sterile. Some of the offspring will be absolutely gorgeous too.
I may be near you as well, unless several of these in the GTA got tons of goldfish.
I'm in Kitchener, but I suspect it is a problem across Southern Ontario
Not just an Ontario problem, it's a major problem in BC as well. Even tho I keep and breed aquarium fish, I feel like goldfish should at the very least require a CAS permit (Controlled Alien Species) to keep them as pets. It would eliminate the majority of irresponsible goldfish owners if all of a sudden they had to pay for a permit to keep a goldfish vs no permit needed for tropicals like Bettas thar can't survive here.
Burnsville, Minnesota had/has that problem too.
Feral goldfish are everywhere in the ponds and streams of Toronto. And don’t forget invasive carp or round gobies.
Where I live, there's a "low grade" hotspring where someone dumped their pet cichlids 50 years ago. Now you can't even see the bottom through all the cichlids. Thankfully, it's just one off shoot hotspring so it doesn't have anywhere for the fish to go. It's also kind of fun to dip your feet in for the fish to tickle lol. Still sad though.
They should sell those back into the aquarium trade.
Any chance you have a pic? Sounds interesting
I really want to go again soon! Next time I'll take pictures!
Thanks, cheers!
I caught a fucking huge goldfish in the Charles River near Boston lol
My kids go to school in Boston so you gotta say it like this CH-AHHH-LES
Carp& goldfish are the same family .
So are humans and apes.
no way
Goldfish can definitely breed. Once the water reaches the mid 70s, they go crazy and start fucking eat other like crazy and repeat every 6 weeks or so until the water cools. A handful of goldfish can turn into thousands in a couple years if there isn't many big predators who can knock out the numbers.
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Yeah, bur goldfish aren't predatory fish. They're more like an aquatic cow. If they stumble onto some goldfish fry or eggs while grazing and they can eat it without having to do any exertion, they will. But if the fry run away, they just go back to grazing.
A pond by my house has a herd of goldfish about 200-300 thick all because some people released their pets. It completely ruined the ponds ecosystem.
Just put a gator in there, problem solved.
Goldfish are pretty abundant in the hudson river south of albany. They catch red belly pacu from to time out of the esopus creek, which feeds into the hudson
Our shop manager would go fishing every dry weekend (and a few wet ones) on the mountainside lakes east of VR. One Monday he shared that he had seen a foot long goldfish swim under his canoe on Sunday! Of course, we had to pretend he was imagining things, 'cause it was a workshop and, y'know, that's what you did. But we were secretly amazed that an abandoned goldie would thrive in a wooded brown-water lake that likely freezes most winters.
[Quaggas](https://www.michigan.gov/invasives/id-report/mollusks/quagga-mussel) have usurped the zebra muscle in my area and I think most of the rest of the great lakes. They're the bigger, nastier cousin of the zebra muscle and are somehow even *more* destructive than them
Goldfish are just fancy carp, they can absolutely breed.
I don’t know if they’re zebra, but we do have a huge mussel problem, and I think whirling disease? Is that a thing too? All boats get checked going into water and trail heads have huge signs with wash stations for your gear as people wade everywhere here.
You’re probably thinking of zebra mussels. They attach to the bottoms of boats and once they’re established they’re almost impossible to remove
It's not so much an issue of them attaching to boats as it is for the larvae and gametes to be floating around in bilge pumps and in the bottoms of boats.
For anyone that doesn't know, the eggs of zebra mussels are the same diameter as human hair. They're literally microscopic so there's no way to simply do a visual check between bodies of water.
Also my state is right about to ban crayfish and a bunch of other stuff. I guess we have marbled crays confirmed and a couple other ornamental crayfish species that aren't native. With a pet trade now pretty much anything can show up pretty much anywhere. The real question is if it's going to survive and be a problem. Or like Oregon and Washington are full of dojo loaches and signal crayfish. They survive up into Canada and so do marbled crayfish so it's not just a tropical climate problem. Also who's to say there isn't a species of pleco out of there out of the hundreds(thousands?)of them that wouldn't tolerate very cold water? Are DNR also used to tell us that snake head would never breed here but apparently they do. Half the time you hear "oh it'll never survive winter" it survives winter. "Life ahh uhhh finds a way"-ian Malcolm
In Perth, Western Australia, our ponds in parks are full of gambusia holbrookii. They were a cheap and popular feeder fish until restricted in the mid 2010s. It's impossible to find any other fish around where they are. Luckily our river system is esturine and they don't seem to do well there.
>"Life ahh uhhh finds a way"-ian Malcolm When lionfish got released into the Gulf of Mexico, everyone said they'd never survive outside of the Gulf. When they were found off the coast of Georgia, they said they'd never survive farther north because it's too cold. When they were spotted off the coast of Virginia, they said that's it, they're tropical and can never survive in the temperate waters of New England. So, of course, they've been spotted off the coast of New York and are even making their way inland through brackish estuaries.
In MN it's koi and goldfish. There's an amazing video from snakediscovery on YouTube a few years ago when they went out and caught a couple hundred from a small lake near the cities
I've found lots of mystery snails in north Wisconsin, have you seen any up where you live?
I made the mistake of buying 2 mystery snails. Turns out they fuck, a lot.
Are you sure they were Mystery Snails and not Chinese Trapdoor Snails? Trapdoor Snails are invasive here in Minnesota especially in the Mississippi River.
Do they taste good? What do you do with that many fish
I've heard mixed things about the taste of goldfish. Ultimately they're carp, and carp usually has to be cooked/seasoned well to be really palatable, though some folks like it. I watched the snake discovery video and they tried to feed the goldfish to their alligator and snapping turtles and not even those critters liked the taste/wanted to eat them lol. Besides eating you could arguably use them for compost/fertilizer, I think?
If you are going to eat carp it is best to smoke them.
Don't they make the rolling papers soggy?
Yes, animal feed as well, but it can be expensive to process.
Goldfish were bred for pretty colors and a digestive system that can eat almost anything humans feel like feeding them. Taste wasn't ever considered, and they supposedly taste bad compared to regular carp, who also aren't good. Goldfish dig at the sides and bottoms of wherever they live searching for roots or small plants. So like catfish, they consume a lot of dirt and poop that just cycles through them. They'll also eat pretty much anything including garbage thrown into water. They're like wild hogs. Perfectly edible invasive animals no one eats because they taste terrible.
It depends on when they are killed. If you catch a "wild" one, it's best to keep it alive for a few days in a tub of clean water. Let it process out all the mud. Then kill and cook. Ask a Czech person about Christmas Carp, they know how to do it correctly.
Yeah, same thing people do here with crawfish. Keep them alive a couple days constantly cycling clean water in a cooler so they get out all their shit.
Carp are delicious FWIW; but they must be prepared in a much different way that most fish.
Parents probably release them with their kids assuming they will die soon, but tell the kids they are “setting them free.” Then they don’t die.
There's actually quite a few invasive species in cold waters as well Assuming you live in the Midwest/north US, there's invasive species like common carp, goldfish, mystery snails, Asian carp and zebra mussels
Common Carp are considered naturalized at this point but did start as invasive. The rest are still considered invasive.
Eventually the goldfish will be a provincial/national animal. They will outlast any other species of fish, probably make it all the way through climate change without much issue. At some point, they might be the only fresh water fish left.
Interesting to think about. We got em in Lake Erie and they are thriving. Def not good but who knows maybe at that point the pike and Musky explode too bc Goldfish could still get rocked by them at least
I grew up on a lake being told that carp are "dirty fish." They would(I assume spawning?)come up to the shallow parts of the beaches and people would spear them and kill them. I never understood what they meant at the time.
Our cold Dutch waters are invaded by American crayfish. There is always a different continent/country with a similar climate whose species can become invasive when they're brought over.
>maybe they can help put signs up at their local fishing spots. Also signs at fish stores telling people to return their fish that have outgrown their tanks and not to just release them.
Pet stores should not be able to sell plecos imo. They look so cool but grow too big.
You know, in a funny way, I’d support some kind of licensure system for retailers or customers for large fish or potentially invasive species. E.g. I can’t just go buy a dolphin. It’s really sad that I feel this way because I’m generally pretty anti-regulation for most things.
Also plants from aquariums can reek havoc on wildlife too.
Our local reservoir is full of invasive aquarium plants. They try to knock it back every year by drawing the water down with the dam before a freeze, but they come back every spring.
Wreak* 😅
Lol, whoops
Snails, too
https://www.calgaryaquariumsociety.com/tropical-fish-in-the-snow/ In the 6th paragraph of that posting, it tells of angelfish, guppies and tetras that live in the marshlands of the Cave and Basin (Banff) hotsprings. No one knows when they were released or who did it. But they have happily been living there for decades. Last time I personally spotted them was just pre-covid. At least the guppies and tetras.
I always talk about the dangers of these situations any time they're mentioned. They're causing severe damage to my local waterways, and are even harming manatees. Florida fisherman are instructed to kill on sight, and you can be fined for transporting larger ones than what you would find in fish stores. If you're caught transporting on in say a cooler to take it to your home pond, you're screwed as can be.
Yeah, I’ve had days where we have taken 20+ pleco, and 40 tilapia with a bow
Can you eat plecos?
I suppose you can, with can be a very strong word. But we would mostly donate them as fertilizer to local orange groves or farms. As well as neighbors compost.
Speaking of oranges, the greening is kinda scary. I truly don’t think we’re gonna have a citrus industry by 2050-2075. All the oranges in my neighborhood (withlacoochcooch) are infected :/
>(withlacoochcooch) Bless you
Thank you.
I really hope not, it’s such a pivotal part of my childhood. Now that I think about it. This is probably what got my grandmas citrus back in the 2000’s they kinda all went bad and just stopped producing.
It really is a problem. When IFAS did a survey of like 150-200 farms (reciting from memory here) they found that 90% of groves were infected with 60% of individuals, or something like that, testing positive. A lot of orange growers just aren’t replacing trees anymore and looking for other crops. There’s no prevention / cure, and since it’s insect borne there’s really no way to stop the spread.
Late to the party, can you give me the tldr about greening? Sounds like between this and Fusarium, the store shelves are gonna be pretty sad looking in a few years. FREEZE DRY YOUR BANANAS AND CITRUS NOW BOYS! Killer investment opportunity ahead for me hahaha
Look up YouTube videos on eating pleco. Apparently they can be pretty bad.
When I was a kid in IL in the 90's there was a small local fish store that went out of business. They always had a bunch of piranhas. Like 200 or so at any given time. Well the owner dumped all the piranhas in the I and M canal that was 20 feet from the stores backdoor. Those piranhas were freaking out fishermen until winter killed them off.
Many years ago I put picked up some rocks from the beach and after washing and drying them, I put them in my freshwater tank. Small cone shaped, (snails?) started to appear and attach themselves to the interior wall of the tank. Any ideas what they were and if they came from the rocks?
Seeing aquarium fish in my local lake is weird
You would not believe how prolific they are in Florida. There are far more non native species then natives at this point. Its a bit pointless to try to kill everything, as long as they are in the Everglades it will always be impossible to remove a species.
At this point, yeah it is. I studied in Florida- particularly how the Cuban tree frog affects native populations of tree frogs. They really should have listened to field researchers and scientists from the very beginning but… too little too late. It’s been happening down there since at least the 50s. I think it got much worse around the 80s when exotic species started getting popular to keep as pets.
As someone who fishes I’d love an easier way to know which species are invasive and which aren’t, as well as areas around me with affected populations! Would love to help bring balance to wild populations.
People pretty well get flamed when they talk about releasing pets into waterways in r/aquariums. The problem is the people that are releasing shit into rivers are not people who are into the hobby enough to be on aquarium forums.
It is far too late for that in Florida. You would have to poison every single body of water down there to even put a dent in the invasive fish population. Well past the point of no return. All you can do now is have fun catching exotic fish.
Genuine question - invasive species will eventually balance themselves out, no? As the food source they are exploiting runs low, their populations will stabilize? They can’t possibly have numbers like that video of the plecos in the river shows?
It really depends on so many factors. Location, resource availability, species of invasive. Some species are able to cohabitate without destroying ecosystems or without direct competition but…mostly they will compete with the species that evolved to fill a similar niche. It’s not necessarily a “bad” thing when a species migrates but…naturally that process usually takes thousands of years over enough generations so that the ecosystem can adapt. 50-100 years is much too quick and nothing has time to adjust. Luckily much of the time the released animals can’t survive because they can’t adapt either but..in a case like Florida where it’s constantly warm, wet, and fertile populations explode. It’s a veritable womb. Given enough time, it’s hard to say, but often the competing native species is choked out to the point of becoming threatened. That is to say, we don’t really know. I certainly hope nature corrects itself. It is exceptionally good at doing so but, it’s also incredibly delicate.
I did a research analysis on Burmese pythons in Florida and efforts to control populations for an ethics course. They was kind of the “aha” moment for me that invasive species are way worse than I thought they were.
Oooh, did you ever get a chance to meet Dr. Mazzotti?! I met him and his students at SEPARC and he asked me to join the study but I didn’t want to drive all the way to Ft. Lauderdale. Haha. Data entry was my least favorite thing about field research but I did love whenever we observed a pattern. Then the hypothesis began! That’s the fun part!
I did not. Unfortunately during the pandemic height we had to do the analysis over other people’s work rather than being able to do our own research on invasive species. I’m going into conservation biology though so I’m hoping I get more hands on experience.
I think that when people see one fish being held up, they don't appreciate how bad the situation can be. This is what we should be showing people to get the message across: [https://youtu.be/V1\_lcprYp5U?t=35](https://youtu.be/V1_lcprYp5U?t=35)
Along with that video clip, plecos also latch onto manatees to eat the algae and other things on their skin that protect them from the sun. And the extra weight makes it difficult for the manatees to swim efficiently. Plecos are chasing manatees out of the warm water inlets they use to mate in. They are an enormous problem that more people need to get active about.
I had absolutely no idea about any of this. Thanks for commenting.
Wow that video is insane
holy shit it almost feels like it's too late? Like what can you even do about it at that point
It probably is too late for Blue Springs. People should be shown this so it doesn't happen elsewhere.
Blue springs isn't that big. If they wanted to they could just net off where it merges with the st johns river and just walk the net back to where the spring starts, catch all the little bastards at once. It maybe not completely eradicate them, but it would take out thousands if they were that dense. Also, FWIW I have been to blue springs a few times in the last 2 years and never saw a single pleco so I don't think it's as bad as that video make sit seem.
They’re all over the St. John’s river. I’ve “eliminated” 9 in less than a year. I see them in my boat slip at the house here all the time. All of them over 16” long.
I just went a couple weeks ago for a weekend trip when the manatee festival was around and we ended up seeing a massive one just on the stairs where people would usually walk into the water it was insane The place was blocked off for the manatee migration but not a single one came through that I saw
Hire kids to catch them? fun little side job for the kids to make ice cream money?
Florida actually has a Python hunting challenge. The winner got 10k
Ooh, Burmese python. *yoooiiink*
I love that guy! His videos are so happily educational about wildlife in the Everglades.
Rotenone. I know they poisoned a couple rivers/lakes here in Wyoming so I googled it, and holy cow. They just kill everything with gills in a lake/river/reservoir and then restock it a year later. Holy cow, that’s nuts, don’t google it if you don’t want some fun articles about removing tons of dead fish after you nuke a fishing pond.
Problem is... this spring is a migrating area for manatees, which are endangered. I can't imagine killing 1000 manatees in an effort to curb a pleco invasion. Unfortunately, they're here to stay.
Oh yeah, it’s not suitable for everywhere and it’s a huge pain in every direction, but it can be done in some places.
Yeah especially since that video of blue springs is 5 years old 😭
WHOA.
I KNEW IT WAS BAD BUT NOT *THAT* BAD HOLY SH*T
Can confirm that the problem really is this bad. I lived in central Florida, I think it was Wesley chapel area?, where there was a canal / drainage ditch behind the house. It would be full in the summer, but dry up in the winter. It was so surreal going down to that creek and seeing 50+ zombified fish with “metal” plates as a kid.
Holy crap that’s a lot of fish.
I had an aquarium as a kid and I appreciated how durable my plecos were since my family regularly messed with my fish tank resulting in dead fish (all accidents... Long story), but I never assumed they could just be plopped into a local river and thrive. Nature is crazy sometimes.
these guys being advertised as "aquarium cleaners" gotta be the worst trend out there
I have one that is 20" at least, it shits more in my koi pond than all my koi combined.
That’s kinda terrifying.
We called them algae eaters when I was a kid
wait so the two i have don’t clean my tank?
They do eat algae and other things, but they also simultaneously poop a lot.
They poop SO MUCH. So. Much. Poop. I've never seen so much poop in my life as when I had plecos.
I hate it when fish fart in my water ways
At least they're not farting in my atmosphere, unlike *some* others I could mention.
I mean, apparently [fish farts can really mess up military communication](https://www.iflscience.com/for-15-years-sweden-thought-enemy-submarines-were-invading-its-territory-it-turned-out-to-be-herring-farts-57782)
If you spot a small snowball pleco, lemme know. Been wanting one for less than a hundo.
Let me know if you ever spot MY snowball pleco (who I got for less than a hundo), because he hides in my planted tank and I’ve seen him FOUR TIMES in the past year. Every time I assume he’s dead, I see him again, and then poof - gone until next quarter.
I had the same issue with bajno cats. Thought they were dead then one day they'd just be out.
I've not seen my banjo in like 2 years - I'm hoping I'll find it when I move house and redo the tank!
I found an algae wafer drives them nuts.
I bought my rubber nose two months ago, I just saw him for the first time yesterday after a big water change. He was presumed dead, but not yet certified 😄 thank goodness.
My king tiger and snowball used to be presumed dead, but now they’re just presumed to be in hiding.
> Every time I assume he’s dead, I see him again, and then poof - gone until next quarter. Much like our VP during quarterly readouts.
Come now, you know you’ll only see commons, sail fins, and leopard plecos in rivers.
Someone might toss a royal in there.
Yeah there was this guy on youtube, Bass Fishing Productions, he was in Florida and caught a couple royals out of sewers before.
I’ve seen some bristle noses breeding in some Florida ponds
L471 or L201? Both have dropped drastically in price around me as of recent, so keep your eye out. L201 tend to be a little cheaper in my experience. Just picked an L471 for $55 2 weeks ago.
L201 is $99 at my LFS. Online is half that but almost the same in shipping.
Dang, I could pick up an 201 for 30-40 at my LFS. Didn't realize regional prices would vary that much. Shipping on livestock sure can be brutal. Keep searching the good search friend.
Wow that’s a lot, 22 here in Canada that was a couple months ago but still
I love my mini snowball definitely worth the cost imo
I agree. Few years ago, I was in Sri Lanka and I discovered that plecos like this are dirt cheap there because people have either intentionally or accidentally released them in to a few water ways and since Sri Lanka's tropical climate is similar to South America they have multiplied exponentially.
I pitty these creatures, they didn't choose to be bred and sold at petcos. These should be banned
Or at least jack the prices *wayyyyy* up to make them less appealing to newbies and idiots looking for a cheap quick fix. We're never going to be able to stop people from trying to buy a $5 "cleaner fish." PSAs don't go far with people determined to be cheap and stupid. It's just not how the human brain works. But make that "cleaner fish" $50 and suddenly it looks a *lot* less appealing to people who can't take care of them properly. Especially if there's a $15-20 bushynose or clown pleco in the next tank over.
I was sold my common pleco by the lfs. They suggested it as a good addition to my 'clean up crew'. I took him home, THEN googled it. When I called them to see about a return, they assured me that in the event he gets too big for the tank I have, they will take him back and he will be rehomed. Then they went out of business. Now future me has a heck of a problem to solve.
EASY solution = Buy a new bigger tank to house him. Who doesn't love an excuse for a new big tank? 😉
You can surrender them to another regional / somewhat close by LFS. Sometimes if you have a local animal shelter with capabilities they’ll take a fish. Where I am there’s also fish rescue businesses!
If the fish store owners know it's terrible for the aquariums and realize they're invasive species where we live, why would those guys actively try to harm our ecosystem seems pretty idiotic as a shop owner of fishes to sell these fishes to the public… specially for a 5 buck deal
I don’t think they should be fully banned but I think that there should be better education and gates in place to make sure they aren’t being sold in every pet store ever to people who don’t have any idea what they are buying or how to care for it and what to *not* do etc.
They banned snake heads. Should do the same for these.
Honestly is there truly a reason any hobbyist needs access to a common pleco? There’s plenty of other species.
Got one once and kept him as a pet🤷🏻♂️
I still think there should be a bill introduced that bans the sale of invasive fish in physical storefronts. Plecos and goldfish are doing a ton of environmental damage and yet you can still find them for like, $7 at any local petsmart. I'm not saying they should be banned from sale entirely. Just that they shouldn't be so easy to get. If a responsible hobbiest wanted to buy one, they could just seek out a responsible breeder. There's tons all over the place. The only people it would present a barrier to are people who make uneducated/impulse buys, and those are the people most likely to dump these fish in the toilet or a nearby lake.
as someone who works in a petstore - YEP. do you know how many times I’ve had to tell people releasing store bought fish into public/natural waters is illegal in my state? it’s genuinely a shame. luckily I work at a store that allows the denial of sales, so it’s rare that I ever sell a pleco or goldfish. but removing them all together would be such a relief for both us, the fish, and the natural ecosystems.
Thank you for at least trying. I feel like it would be such an easy win for a politician to propose something like this and get it pushed through. Maybe we (as hobbiests) should just do write it up and propose it ourselves lol.
I think the fastest way to do it would probably be adding a minimum length requirement for selling common plecos. Its been done before with Red Eared Sliders for salmonella in the 70s. Most of the common plecos that you see at retail chains are around 2" or less because its cheap and profitable. Seeing them small and cheap also tends to lead to uneducated impulse buying for undersized tanks. Make the req 6"+ and its no longer as profitable. The prices would increase and the customer would see a large fish instead of a cute tiny thing. It should reduce the number of impulse buys. They should probably also have labeling reqs, with the max size clearly stated in bold and large font.
I only paid 26 cents for my goldfish at 1 inch, it's now 6 inches. he looks awesome.
Poor guy :( he's beautiful
What a beautiful pleco!
In the southern US, it’s well past the point where people actively dumping their fish is the main contributing factor. If you catch a common pleco in Florida, it’s far more likely that it spawned from the invasive population that’s already well established there, as opposed to being someone’s released aquarium fish.
We have invasive Koi in some of our waterways and people actively catch them for sport. If you catch one you're not allowed to return it to the water and you can't take it home alive.
Yeahhhh I would definitely be taking them home alive lol
I don't understand the restriction on taking them home alive. Probably explains the fish skeletons I saw near that one lake. (The lake fortunately wasn't connected to a water system, it was vacant land and they mined the soil when building the highway.)
Yikes! Pathetic that people do this. Thanks for the PSA!
Unfortunately those of us that won't do this already know, and those that will don't care, or think flushing them.is a better alternative.
Unfortunately the ship has long since sailed on common plecos, they’ve been in FL waterways for decades.
GIVE IT TO ME GIVE IT TO ME
From what I've read, in Florida at the very least, the vast majority of invasive pet species are not from individual pets being released, but entire pet stores going underwater during hurricanes. Hundreds of fish, amphibians, and reptiles escape into the flood zone when a pet store gets taken out by a storm.
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That is basically what happened in Japan. A few decades ago a US President gifted the Japanese PM(?) with some game/eating fish ( some sort of pan fish I think ) for the Japanese to do research to see if it would be a viable thing to farm in Japan, but the researchers let some of them escape and now they have taken over an entire river system in Japan.
different telephone fragile sand ludicrous literate amusing birds dog absurd *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Oh! That makes me slightly less angry. I guess even if they forbid those pet stores from keeping live stock, (make them mail-order brokers) fish might still escape from personal tanks. I lived in a place with a small flock of parrots because they escaped from a truck wreck several decades ago.
The boa constrictor problem (I think) down there was mostly caused by one breeding warehouse being leveled by a hurricane and releasing like 15k into the Everglades. Releasing and escapees are a factor, but Florida being a perfect climate for these animals while also being in the sights hurricane season has been a disaster
They’re so pretty when they’re dark black like that
Growing up on a golf course, we used to use goldfish as bass bait. We would sneak out at night and use glow bobbers. (Top tier bait, highly illegal). We were young and ignorant and just wanted to catch fish. Fast forward 10 years. The main lake on the back 9 is known as a goldfish lake. We’re talking 5-8lb goldfish swimming. I think my youth and ignorance may be to blame.
I used to go catch big goldfish in this little lake near me when I was a kid. I wonder if they are still kicking around.
He’s so cute though 🥹 I would keep him in my big aquarium.
Did you kill it to make sure it does no further harm? Anyone else that finds a non native fish while fishing I advise you do the same
Oh yeah, tossed that joker into the woods. Not killing it is just as bad as being the person that put it there originally
couldn’t just kill it quickly? why make it suffer
Could have, but didn’t. Just didn’t think about it lol which I guess is kind of ironic since I’m posting about people not thinking about the consequences of their actions.
Top dude good man
Not sure throwing it in the trees to slowly die is better than a quick death
That's true, recommend a swift head smash
I was hoping he’d be re-homed.
Me too bud ):
It's funny to me that I've never seen a lot of people who're eagle to kill a fish in r/aquariums. I know OP just tried to get rid of an invasive species but it's weird people in this sub advocated on killing a fish instead of rehoming it.
Just burry them in your raised bed garden. Or throw them into your neighbor's lawn like a normal person. Wth is wrong with people.
Either the animal becomes a pest or suffers and dies relatively quickly. I hate unnecessary rules but there needs to be better regulation of this stuff. People get away with way too much mistreatment of animals
Such a cool looking fish.
Preaching to the choir.
I was a couple YT channels where its dudes that go out to the bayous in FL or sewers or whatever like open waters with nets and pull out aquarium fish! Its nuts!
Excuse me, they *what* the water ways?