Minnows, disease, and other dumb moves

[RadarContact1]

Hi all.
Many many years ago, I grabbed a net full of minnows out of the natural stream-fed pond in my front yard and dumped them into my goldfish pond. I just figured, “why not… more fish”. Well, I have several issues with having done that:
1) you can’t see them (they’re black and small) so they don’t provide any benefit, visually
2) when I feed my goldfish, the minnows quickly gang-rush the food and it appears that the goldfish seem to stop eating once they have to compete for the pellets
3) they reproduce very quickly and I have a lot in there now
4) I think I introduced disease into my pond with the minnows. My fish continually have skin and eye problems that (I don’t think) were there prior to the minnows. (I’ve had this pond in one form or another since 2003, so it’s hard to recall all the details)
In retrospect, the minnow idea was a very bad one. They’ve possibly stopped any mosquito larvae from developing, but I’ll never know that.

*I had to drain my pond a few years ago, and I mean completely dry. It was bone dry for almost 2 weeks. Liner was washed/scrubbed, etc. and filled with new water. Only the goldfish were returned to the pond. 3 months later I started to see minnows again! Crazy…

id love to get rid of them or at least keep them at a minimum but don’t know how. Minnow traps don’t seem to work, and I hate to use the net because I don’t want to scare the goldfish.

Any ideas?

Thanks
// Radar //

 

[Stephen Noble]

Minnow eggs most likely transferred back and forth with your goldfish. They might have been on plants, decorations, filtration or anything you removed and later reintroduced into the fish pond. There are methods to remove the eggs that fish farms use when changing species but in your case, Absolutely do not dump the minnows back into the stream. The infection will spread and have catastrophic results on the wild population. Ask your local wildlife department for assistance.

 

[addy1]

We all do dumb moves now and then. Good luck on getting rid of them.

 

[RadarContact1]

We all do dumb moves now and then. Good luck on getting rid of them.

Thanks. My only move thus far is to feed the fish, and once the goldfish seem to stop feeding, go in with the net and get as many minnows (still chasing around the pellets) as I can. Been doing this for days now and it seems to be keeping the numbers at bay, at least.