# Help, there's a stickleback in my pond!



## Lulu's owner

I don't think I've ever posted in the fish keeping section before, being a cat and dog person, but a stickleback has appeared from nowhere in my little pond. The pond is not much bigger than a child's plastic pool, it's circular, less than 5 ft across and about ten inches deep. It has various plants in it and a couple of frogs.

I don't know what to do about this fish. I'm worried it might upset the frogs, and I wonder what it's getting to eat. Should I just ignore it or do I need to do anything? All advice gratefully received.


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## Fishyfins

hmmmmm this is a tough on XD

if the pond is fairy mature, and has a good lot of plant cover/muck on the bottom, then it will be living on the little invertabrates living in the roots and silt most likely. i highly doubt he will upset the frogs or any other life in there thats bigger than its mouth, so id just let him do his own thing.

as for how it got there, its likely that it was caught by a bird in its native water, then dropped by the bird into your pond. its the only explaination i can think of beyond a human putting it there on purpose. a similar thing happened here in Hull last year, when a group of local school children came outside for lunch, and found a live crab from the seaside scuttling around the playground, 5 miles or so from the nearest salt water!


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## Lulu's owner

Fishyfins said:


> hmmmmm this is a tough on XD
> 
> if the pond is fairy mature, and has a good lot of plant cover/muck on the bottom, then it will be living on the little invertabrates living in the roots and silt most likely. i highly doubt he will upset the frogs or any other life in there thats bigger than its mouth, so id just let him do his own thing.
> 
> as for how it got there, its likely that it was caught by a bird in its native water, then dropped by the bird into your pond. its the only explaination i can think of beyond a human putting it there on purpose. a similar thing happened here in Hull last year, when a group of local school children came outside for lunch, and found a live crab from the seaside scuttling around the playground, 5 miles or so from the nearest salt water!


Thanks for reply. There are quite a few plants in my little pond so that explains how the stickleback is eating. It could have been brought by a bird but I'm in the inner city and we mostly only get wood pigeons drinking in it. I did buy quite a few plants in the summer that were intended for a decorative barrel and I wonder if the fish could have come as an egg in the plants by any chance? It's about two or three inches long so I don't know how old it is, it looks adult (not that I've seen one before!), which might rule out my theory?.


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## Guest

Stickleback eggs are adhesive, so they can quite easily stick to the feathers or legs of water-going birds such as coots or herons. Perch (_Perca flavescens_) also use a similar method of dispersing their young, as their eggs also posess these adhesive properties. This way, birds can carry the eggs from one body of water to another.


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## Lulu's owner

Chillinator said:


> Stickleback eggs are adhesive, so they can quite easily stick to the feathers or legs of water-going birds such as coots or herons. Perch (_Perca flavescens_) also use a similar method of dispersing their young, as their eggs also posess these adhesive properties. This way, birds can carry the eggs from one body of water to another.


That's interesting. Do you know how long it takes for the egg to turn into a full grown stickleback fish? I still wonder if it's more likely the egg was attached to one of the plants I bought, as I live in a really built-up inner city area and we just don't get any water birds, only wrens, sparrows, bluetits and wood pigeons. Maybe a water bird dropped the egg onto the plants before they reached me? I've not seen the stickleback lately, but I assume it is still there because it probably doesn't have any predators in my little garden.


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## Guest

Lulu's owner said:


> That's interesting. Do you know how long it takes for the egg to turn into a full grown stickleback fish? I still wonder if it's more likely the egg was attached to one of the plants I bought, as I live in a really built-up inner city area and we just don't get any water birds, only wrens, sparrows, bluetits and wood pigeons. Maybe a water bird dropped the egg onto the plants before they reached me? I've not seen the stickleback lately, but I assume it is still there because it probably doesn't have any predators in my little garden.


Were the plants kept outdoors before you purchased them? The stickleback could have come in on the plants.

Stickleback eggs can take upto a month to hatch, during which time the male will defend the next aggressively from predators.

Fortunately, Sticklebacks are a native UK species and they shouldn't be of any concern to the frogs. Normally, most frogs and toads should be quite capable of consuming newly-hatched Sticklebacks, given their diminuitive size.


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## Guest

Chillinator said:


> Stickleback eggs are adhesive, so they can quite easily stick to the feathers or legs of water-going birds such as coots or herons. Perch (_Perca flavescens_) also use a similar method of dispersing their young, as their eggs also posess these adhesive properties. This way, birds can carry the eggs from one body of water to another.


Fantastic informative post yet again!
We learn something new every day!


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## Guest

DoubleTrouble said:


> Fantastic informative post yet again!
> We learn something new every day!


I should also say that our own native species of freshwater Perch, the European Perch (_Perca fluviatilis_), also produces adhesive eggs.

_Perca flavescens_ is the scientific name for the Yellow Perch, a close, if smaller relative. The Yellow Perch is native to North America, including Canada.


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## Lulu's owner

Chillinator said:


> Were the plants kept outdoors before you purchased them? The stickleback could have come in on the plants.
> 
> Stickleback eggs can take upto a month to hatch, during which time the male will defend the next aggressively from predators.
> 
> Fortunately, Sticklebacks are a native UK species and they shouldn't be of any concern to the frogs. Normally, most frogs and toads should be quite capable of consuming newly-hatched Sticklebacks, given their diminuitive size.


I would guess that the plants were kept outdoors, as the address they came from sounded very rural. I noticed a couple of water beetle type creatures that hadn't been in my pond before, too (maybe the stickleback ate them as they're gone now).

So if frogs can eat newly hatched sticklebacks, it sounds like my stickleback maybe appeared fully grown, otherwise the frogs would have eaten it in such a tiny pond as mine? It's quite a mystery.


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## Guest

Lulu's owner said:


> I would guess that the plants were kept outdoors, as the address they came from sounded very rural. I noticed a couple of water beetle type creatures that hadn't been in my pond before, too (maybe the stickleback ate them as they're gone now).


Could you PM me with the address? I can look it up on Google Earth and take a look for any nearby expanses of water, which would of course attract water birds.


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## Lulu's owner

Chillinator said:


> Could you PM me with the address? I can look it up on Google Earth and take a look for any nearby expanses of water, which would of course attract water birds.


Here's a link to the place I bought my plants from. The place is called Debenham in Suffolk and I bought the decorative barrel collection because my pond is so small there were enough plants in that collection. They're very nice by the way, so it's an added bonus if I got some free wildlife (now you've reassured me that the frogs will be OK).
Water plants, Native Pond plants, Aquatic plants, Puddleplants


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## Guest

Right, this is what I found around the postcode you supplied and the address of the aquatic store in the above link.

Around you: There are three open expanses of water approximately three clicks to the SE of your address, and another expanse of water the same distance in the opposite direction. 

Around the afforementioned aquatic store: Quite a rural location, however there isn't a great abundance of open expanses of water around this neck of the woods. The nearest 'lake' is a about a click to the northeast. 

Crazy huh? :lol:


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## Lulu's owner

Chillinator said:


> Right, this is what I found around the postcode you supplied and the address of the aquatic store in the above link.
> 
> Around you: There are three open expanses of water approximately three clicks to the SE of your address, and another expanse of water the same distance in the opposite direction.
> 
> Around the afforementioned aquatic store: Quite a rural location, however there isn't a great abundance of open expanses of water around this neck of the woods. The nearest 'lake' is a about a click to the northeast.
> 
> Crazy huh? :lol:


Quite a mystery. My stickleback seems to have vanished, so now I'm wondering where he's got to rather than where he came from. Maybe he's just hiding though? I'll let you know if he reappears! It's a shame really that my little foray into fishkeeping only seemed to last for about three days.


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