Warmouhts are in the bream/ sunfish family. They get thicker in body
and more chunky than typical bream and sunnies do. They have a
horrific appetite too, and they seem to thiunk they are more of a
large mouth bass than a bream. Its easy to tell bream and warmouths
apart in regards to sex, so you could easily keep a few females or
males and not worry about them spawing. I know warmouths do just fine
as a solitary fish as well and would be surprised if there was not
any in Tennesee waters. You can easily check with the fish and game
depatment and see if its legal to have them in a private small
"contained" pond, for use as "fry control". Would seem very weird for
a southern state not to allow possession of bream etc for use in a
private pond, as the southern states are notorious for small private
ponds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warmouth

Parrots feather does not like heat without ample doses of rain or dew
etc. It loves high humidity though, and it really likes those mornings
it gets dew on it....and it does seem to appreciate some period of
shade in the late afternoon. High temps and little rain makes it grow
extremely slow and it appears to be anemic and pale green and not as
feathery.

I do not know about rosy reds at all......How about a oscar. put it in
the pond during spawning season and remove it once it gets too cool.
That definately would control spawns!

I would be looking for a warmouth in each pond....


On Sun, 8 Jul 2007 17:52:26 -0500, "Reel McKoi"
wrote:


"A. Paul Ing" wrote in message
m...
On Fri, 6 Jul 2007 19:00:45 -0500, "Reel McKoi"
wrote:


"A. Paul Ing" wrote in message
m...
snip


I'm going to try and avoid shipping at all costs. I'm just not set up
for
it and I'm already feeling overwhelmed taking care of all these fish.
I just
noticed there are about 50 more new fry in one of the holding tanks
behind
the house. What I believed to be two females was a pair. It's
starting to
become a full time job instead of a pleasurable hobby now that this
area is
getting saturated. The original guy who was going to take them all
had to
back down because he wasn't selling what he already had as fast as he
expected. I was lucky the two other stores took most, but not all of
them.
In the past few years the stores snapped them up as fast as I had them
up to
size (3 to 5"). And it was like everyone I knew had a cousin or
brother
who wanted to buy a few pond fish from us. But it seems that now
everyone
else is having a koi baby-boom and the market will only absorb so
many. If
shipping is the only answer I think I have to start looking to sell or
give
away the adults.....

BTW. I was stiffed twice on pond plants I sent to people I met on
this NG
years ago. Of three boxes I sent, only one person paid me for S&H -
so I
stopped shipping plants.

I can see the shying away from shipping fish if piossible. So, with
that in mind, I thiink its itme to break out the shovels ;-) for some
more ponds!

NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! I have 2 inground and 3 above ground ponds now! :-O
That's not including the 3 barrels and 3 150g kiddy pools. I'm "drowning"
in ponds, pools and fish. I must find a way to stop the spawning.

I have shipped a heap of plants already, using those foam boxes for
themost part or wet packed newspaper and the USPS Priority mail boxes.
Have yet to be stiffed,....some were slow to pay or send the trade
plants, but eventually they all came through.I bet I shipped 50+
pounds of parrots feather and probablyt as much duckweed......just
last year......This year however I think I pretty well have 99.99% of
my parrots feather under control.....and its down to a very very small
patch of approx 2 feet by 2 feet square

You're lucky! I got the dead-beats. For some reason my parrots
feather isn't doing as well this year. It may be the heat we're suffering
here - in the 90s every day and very high humidity. It's shorter and
growing more slowly than usual.

How about a predator fish, that would help with spawns such. HOwever
with the fry size now it would have ot be a sizeable
fish.......however just spawned fry orfs or even a single warmouth or
bream would do wonders....

What about rosy reds? I can get them here easily. I noticed there are no
goldfish fry in the small inground 150g pool. There are several rosy reds
in with the GF. I haven't seen orfs in years. I think it's illegal here
to keep bream in private ponds... never heard of warmouths.