GardenBanter.co.uk - Fish suggestions for recently installed stream

tg wrote:
I have installed about a 75' stream in my backyard that is circulated with a
Sequence 1000-5800 pump. It is fairly shallow, about 12" - 16" in the center
channel area, 3 feet wide. I have a skimmer on one end. I figure I am moving
about 4000-4500 GPH after head/pipe losses so the flow is quite strong at
the skimmer. What fish would you recommend that would work in the shallower
waters, like the water movement, and not be forever getting caught in the
skimmer?

I've seen basic mosquito fish do pretty well in a shallow stream
environment before. My undergrad campus had a stream even shallower than
yours (maybe 8" tops) with tons of mosquito fish and short plants, and the
flow wasn't as much, but they seemed to do well. Cheap, so it's not a big
deal when the migratory birds come in for the invitable feeding you're
going to get on a shallow stream, heh. That stream on campus had a small
green heron that would be an annual attraction eating the mosquito fish.
Never bothered the koi and goldfish in the main pond at the bottom of the
stream because of it. Another plus is the mosquito fish will take care of
most insect larva that might happen to be laid in the stream.

And if this stream gets any sort of direct sunlight, you'll probably want
to consider having some short and/or fast growing plants (if you don't
already) unless you want it to be an algae paradise. That was another
problem the campus stream had. The maintenance crew knew very little about
aquaculture, so they'd pull plants along with the algae not realizing the
plants would help prevent algae (or not caring since it takes more effort
to remove string algae without taking out large sections of plants). So
the plant load was never adequate enough to deal with the nutrients in the
water and the algae would keep coming back. I'm pretty sure the pond
designer had meant the stream to be a vegative filter for the pond due to
its length, flow and the types of plants that were put in there. But that
only works when the maintenance staff leaves the plants in place, heh. The
few sections of the stream where the plants had become well-established
were pretty algae free.