I do understand your question! your taddies and mosquito fish came in from the pond right? the pond with the muck in the bottom for the turtles? Muck and fish don't mix. The taddies and mosquito fish probably brought in parasites that came from the muck. the goldies from the pet shop were stressed from the move to the pet shop to your aquarium, so the parasites that the skeeter fish and taddies were carrying attacked them. The real problem gets back to the pond. there is no reason that you could not overwinter goldies in a healthy pond. Overwinter the turtles inside, but leave the goldies outside in a CLEAN pond and they will be just fine. You say your pond is in perfect shape...but you also say that when you stir up the muck on the bottom that fish die. That is not a sign of a pond in perfect shape, but rather a pond that has a serious problem going on. If your aquarium water quality check outs, then it is almost certain that parasites from the pond are killing the new goldies. Does that make sense?

first of all if you are going to keep the plants growing then plan on getting lights. the lights that come with a fishtank hood are probably 15 to 20 watts....which is useless for growing plants. Secondly those plants are gonna need food...as in CO2, so id recommend getting a small yeast solution CO2 injector (around $15). Also goldfish will DESTROY any plant put in the aquarium so i can almost guarantee if you try to overwinter plants in a tank with goldfish all the plants will be gone in a few weeks. People tend to forget also, that algae will ALWAYS outcompete plants for light and food if the levels of both are low. Leafy plants (anything not algae) are WAY more complex than algae so they need WAY more nutrients of all types. If those nutrients aren't present in great enough amounts....only one thing will thrive.....algae. If you just want to keep them alive then some low light with no fish and room temp will be fine. They will get algae all over them and most leaves will die but the main body of the plant should be fine till you can replant them in spring. Try to remember also that room temp to us is usually WAY hotter than spring thaw water temps, so taking plants from 70 degree water in your home to put them in 55 degree water outside can be a huge shock to most plants so they will go through some transplant shock.

I have dragon tail..... curlyrebel@aol.com Dennis

I would like to get my hands on any of these three aquatic mosses for my aquarium. I have bunched lysimachia aurea, java moss and any other plants u see on my trade page! have a look www.gardenweb.com/members/exch/missa thanks! Melissa