Howdy. My name is Dan. I live in northern Virginia. I've been keeping fish for about 4 years (give or take, it all seems like a blur of WCs now.)

Presently, I have no livebearers, but I think wild strain livebearers are kinda neat. I have cichlids and catfish. I think I'd like to keep Goodeids. Does anyone in the area keep these fish? I'm interested in conservation efforts; I joined GWG, too.

Does anyone in the DC metro area keep livebearers outside during the summer?

later,
d

hey D welcome to ALA, I'm also looking into conservation efforts for goodeids as well

Welcome to the ALA. If you look under the Species Maintenance program there is a contact for the person who runs it.

I am sure there are people in your area or the Washington DC area that have Goodeids. They make great fish for outdoor ponds during the summer. In your area, you can probably start keeping the cool water ones outside in another couple weeks or a month. I usually have to wait until May to start putting them out, but I am in Michigan.

If you don’t find any before this fall, October, let me know. I will be at the catfish convention and could probably bring you some, I always have a few species hanging around.

Good luck wild livebearers are neat fish.

dSerk, keeping livebearers outdoors from April to September should be a breeze in the DC area. I do it in central Illinois where we get very hot summers and near zero winters. I always set up in a shady area and use a fountain pump to give me some nice cooling through evaporation. By adjusting the spray pattern I can get crude control of the water's cooling. This is my summer tub, using a 150 gallon stock tank, yep that is a horse trough.