When do Ya‘ll put out your tubs?

[Goosedub]

I live in Chicago and am itching to get some summer tubing started. It’s pretty cold yet. When do you all put water in your tubs and when do you add fish? I don’t want to have mosquito issues so I want to time it right

[JettsPapa]

I'm in southeast Texas.  The tubs stay out with shrimp and plants in them year-round.  Guppies get added in May (I tried in April last year, but it got down into the 40's one night and I lost almost all of them).

[zelibeli]

This is only my 2nd year doing tubbing so I may not be a good source, but I'm in a similar winter-area as you and I'm planning on moving my fish out around May 20th. Frosts at that point are rather rare and temps kinda stabilize into the happy-guppy zone by then. 

[Kathy F]

I looked at a weather table for my regions and it said April 15 to the first week in October.    I live in Central Alabama.   I honestly don't remember where I looked the info up or I would give you the link.  

 

ETA:   I remember where I found the data.    Just plug your zip code into the box and it will tell when the average first and last frost dates took place.   Frost Dates: First and last frost dates by zipcode - Garden.org

Edited April 11, 2022 by Kathy F

[modified lung]

Depends on the species but I usually wait until the water temperature overnight lows are around 65°F before I put anything new outside. Mostly because a lot of tank bred fish aren't used to daily temperature swings and I feel like it's better to ease them into it at close to a familiar temperature. But really that might not be such a huge deal.

This last winter my lowest recorded water temp was 47°F. I had white clouds, ricefish, flag fish, comment goldfish, neocardinia shrimp do well out there all winter. Some CPD fry made it to the low 50s°F but idk if it was the temp or the dragonfly larvae I found that took them out. 

[PineSong]

I’m in the lower Midwest and plan to set my tub out in a week or two and let the plants get a head start while the water warms up. I’ll probably add my fish in mid May. I haven’t decided yet what fish will go out…I’m tired of sorting fry!

[Siett88]

I'm in Milwaukee, and I'm putting my tub out soon, to kind of 'mature' (get algae, microbes, stuff like that going) and will add fish mid-May. I do medaka, but if I did guppies or something like that, I'd probably wait til sometime in June.

[Patrick_G]

I’ve added a heater set on the lowest setting to extend my season. I’ll probably do that again this year. 

[Nate s]

Northeastern Kentucky. I put my guppies out late may (when highs are usually 78 and above and lows are low 60s). Last year though we had a week in June where the lows were in the low 50s and I had to put out a heater. Mine is a shaded in ground ~80 gallon pond. Gets 2-3 hours of late afternoon/evening sun.I’ll probably put them out in June this year. I usually pull them back inside mid September. If I could do it over I would move it about 2 feet over so I could get just a little more sun. 

Edited April 12, 2022 by Nate s

[PineSong]

On 4/12/2022 at 12:45 PM, Patrick_G said:

I’ve added a heater set on the lowest setting to extend my season. I’ll probably do that again this year. 

What kind of heater did you use? I am not so much thinking about getting an early start so much as being able to leave them out through October...my tub is a 110 gallon stock tank.

[Patrick_G]

On 4/12/2022 at 5:26 PM, PineSong said:

What kind of heater did you use? I am not so much thinking about getting an early start so much as being able to leave them out through October...my tub is a 110 gallon stock tank.

In my 100 gallon above ground goldfish pond I'm using a cheap 500w one from Amazon set on its lowest setting, but I only need to raise the temp to the mid 50s. In my small 13 gallon guppy tub I used an Aqueon pro 100w set at 68.