Mathmatical Hinderance! (Breeding Outdoors)

[Sophia'sSophia]

Hello everyone!
Due to the fact that all of my snakes eat fish, I'm interested in a "large" scale breeding operation. I want to set up a "pond" outside in which guppies could propagate freely.

I want to use a feeding trough, childrens pool, or basically any kind of above-ground plastic container...
The problem is, I don't want to have to bring the gups inside during the winter (Pensacola Florida, average low for Jan being about 40F). I hypothesize that if the water quantity is large enough, the temps wont drop too low in the night. The question is, how do I determine how large it must be?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, even if its just a tip about what to research to come to a conclusion.

[Falconeer999]

I have a friend who's a meteorologist who may have a formula for determining that. I sent him a message and will let you know when he gets back to me.

[Zoo Nanny]

My father bred guppies when I was young. He always used a breeder tank for the babies because the parents would eat them. He had a 50 gal aquarium with hanging breeder tanks. If you put lots of live plants in the tank it gives the babies a place to hide so you could eliminate the breeder tanks.

[jarich]

Above ground is the part of that equation that makes it more difficult. If you sink the tank in the ground its easier to keep the water warmer overnight, especially in a place like FL. Above ground means its open to the elements and therefore cools much quicker overnight.

[Sophia'sSophia]

Falconeer, thank you! I can't wait to hear if they've got something. :)

Zoo Nanny: Yeah that's a way to do it, but it takes all the effort of keeping fish which I don't enjoy terribly lol. It also takes up too much space, I keep the fry in their own aquariums atm. I want to up the production, and have no roor for that indoors. They'd probably end up enjoying all the mosquitos too :D (If they can survive winters, course)

Jarich: That's a good idea, I will try to, at least partway.

[Zoo Nanny]

Another idea would be a pond. You can pick up really cheap small ones at the big box stores like lowes and home depot. Some of them come complete with filter and you could get a cheap heater. You could even just sink a heavy duty tote and buy just the filter.

[Revenant]

The shallower, the more trouble you'll have keeping them alive and safe until you're ready to feed them off. The cold will be less dangerous than the heat, which can kill the oxygen content of a small pond pretty quickly.

You could look into keeping a native livebearer species. They'll be more suited to surviving the winter. Something like Heterodon Formosa. It should be pretty easy to find.

Another thing to consider- an outdoor pond, especially a small one, will require a LOT of maintenance. If you really don't enjoy keeping fish at all, you'd probably have to put less work and money into a heavily planted, well filtered breeder tank. You can just use anacharis for the breeder tank. It grows like a weed, is nearly impossible to kill, and won't require special lighting or fertilizers to keep alive. In addition, keeping them in a tank inside would probably cause them to breed and keep you in feeders year round. Outdoors, they'd likely go more or less dormant as the weather cools.

[Sophia'sSophia]

A pond is too big a project for me at the moment, it seems... A few medical and financial issues have compounded this past week. >__>

Hopefully I can revisit this idea in the summer when my shoulder heals fully, I'm sure I'll need to dig. Until then I'll stick with the indoor stuff. :/

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'll be thinking on them. :D