Hi Catherine,
I get mine today from my local pet store. It is a large pet store but not a national chain store. They've been ordering them weekly but today is the first day they've gotten them in... I guess a lot of other pet stores have been buying them up. I had two mosquito fish in my pond last year, they came with a couple of plants I bought at the local pond store. I'm happy to say that they somehow over-wintered in my pond. I didn't expect that.

Does anyone have a limit or range to add when stocking a garden pond?

I might get a lot, four dozen/2700 gal pond, as last year I had too much larvae in my rocky areas (I had my water tested at the University), mosquitos & non-biting midges.

The University's recommendation for me was the addition of Gambusia, the mosquito fish.

Thanks pondbucket,
I was wondering the same thing about how many to get. My various stocktank watergardens are 300 gallons each, so I was guessing 2 per tank, but maybe that's too few?

Our local health and disease vector dept. has them every spring. They take your reservations and you aren't likely to get any if your timing is off. I can't figure how they can count them myself. Sandy

Thanks Sandy.

I still don't have the answer on how many but I was speaking with the fella at the pet store and he said they will reproduce quickly. When I asked for four dozen, that's ten dollars worth, he didn't think anything of it.

Well I live in Texas and the mosquitoes are horrible down here. I just installed a 250 gallon garden pond in my front yard. In it I put probably 50+ wild caught gambusia affinis and a hand full of wild caught Poecilia latipinna. Of course I also have two blue gill and a green sunfish that will help keep the population down a little. Two won't do anything in my opinion. If it is a male and female the male will harass the female to death and two males won't reproduce obviously. Get you a nice healthy stock of them i would say 10 per 30 or forty gallons. They stay small reproduce readily and if you have bigger fish in it they can keep the pop. down. Or you can use them as feeders for larger fish in your indoor aquariums. As far as getting them if you live in the south you can catch them yourself like I do or if your lucky a LFS might have some. Otherwise you are stuck paying the shipping and handling of ordering them off line.

City of Albuquerque has them at three different nurseries here (one year they were at the City Animal Control facility) and they are given away free for people's ponds. The minnows I got a few years ago lived over winter with the goldies & reproduced (they are live bearers)but imagine my big goldfish may have eaten some of the tiny ones just born. Then I went to add water to my small pond, forgot it & it overflowed so there went the minnows (they tend to stay in the top part of the pond .. eat the mosquito larvae)!! Now I have another start & some of the new minnows were pregnant so hopefully I won't play the same stunt again !

I first got rosy minnows fron superpets I don't know their latin name though.
Don't goldfish eat them too?

You can look at about 1 1/2 " of Fish, per gallon of water. So IF you have 100 Gallons, you can have 67 fish (100 / 1.5 = 66.67). These fish will reproduce, but they (along with other fish) will eat their newborn. I'd suggest having as many small plants in the water for the baby fish to hide in, this will help keep the pond stocked. They will eventually balance themselves out and keep the Mosquito larva out of the pond. I do like the one gentleman's idea of putting in a pair of bluegill in the pond. Again, this will help keep things in balance. These are NOT minnows. They are more in line with the Platy family of aquarium fish. Check you local gov's to see if they will sell or give away some or you can go to places like https://www.liveaquaria.com/product/1530/?pcatid=1530. They will sell them but next day shipping SUCKS in the total cost of the fish, but well worth it in the long run when you get rid of Skeeters!! LOL. GOOD LUCK

Kevin

Goldfish eat mosquitoes and are winter hardy. Mosquito fish die in winter. You can also use Mosquito Dunks which are cheap and non toxic biological control of mosquito larvae.

Not sure why, but we have mosquito fish the City gives away each spring. From our first batch a few years ago, we now have hundreds that live over winters in our small pond & are live bearers. I see they are now eating the toad eggs & teeny ones that have just hatched!

Are there several varieties of so-called 'mosquito eating fish' maybe if some die in winter? I live in zone 7 in Albuquerque, NM & it does freeze in winter here.