phoenix44 Posted August 25, 2009 Report Share Posted August 25, 2009 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... =112134968 August 22, 2009 Florida's foreclosed homes don't just have unmowed lawns and broken windows. Some also have swimming pools full of stagnant rainwater and overrun with algae. One village has taken a novel approach to cleaning those pools; instead of hiring pool services, residents are letting the catfish loose. Dave Hoy of the Shiner Shack fish farm says many aquarium owners would recognize the fish as a larger version of a pleco, the docile, sucker-mouthed fish usually stuck to the side of a tank. Hoy's plecos have been hired by the village of Wellington in Palm Beach County to chow down on the scum collecting in the pools of abandoned properties. Plecos are a kind of catfish, Hoy says, and are very communal, very social. For a medium-sized pool, he'll drop about 15 fish in the water and "let nature kind of take its course." These aren't the same catfish you'd usually find in a sandwich bun, but Hoy says they could be good eating. "We did do a little study with the university," he says. "[We] gathered them up some of these fish, cleaned them up, and they sent them over to Italy. I believe they had some chefs that experimented with some dishes there and said that it is quite good." Considering all the fish the village is fattening up, Hoy might be on to something. "There might be another use here," he laughs. "We might be developing a new marketplace." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morcs Posted August 25, 2009 Report Share Posted August 25, 2009 But who cleans all the poo? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamH Posted August 25, 2009 Report Share Posted August 25, 2009 Interesting. I'm guessing they'd only be dropping the common plecs in there? I read in a Nat Geo article that they use mosquito fish to eat, you guessed it, mosquitos in stagnant pools. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BikBok Posted August 25, 2009 Report Share Posted August 25, 2009 But who cleans all the poo? snap .. I was just going to ask that.. who cleans the pleco muck? .. and don't they need some current? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southerrrngirrl Posted August 25, 2009 Report Share Posted August 25, 2009 I assume the pools are not chlorinated or treated with any chemicals??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoenix44 Posted August 25, 2009 Author Report Share Posted August 25, 2009 pleco poo is a lot easier to clean than a slimy coating on a swimming pool floor. but id imagine that the creditors would clean the pool / dry it out if the house was being sold? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whetu Posted August 26, 2009 Report Share Posted August 26, 2009 There are some videos on Youtube of catfish in people's swimming pools in the southern states of the USA. Apparently they put them in there to clean them for part of the year - in some places they can just catch them in their local ponds and bring them home. I don't know how they would catch them again when they want to get rid of them though. I have enough trouble catching my fish in my itty-bitty tank let alone a swimming pool! As for chlorine etc, by the time a pool has been abandoned for a few weeks and started to get really slimey the chlorine would have been exposed to enough air and sunshine that it would be all gone. I have also heard that people who are abandoning their houses are leaving fish tanks in there too. One guy I was talking to rescued a bichir from a house that had been abandoned several weeks before. Without power the tank was all nasty and mucky, and the poor little fish was living in only a few inches of water! People must be really desperate to just leave everything like that and walk away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skippy_49nz Posted August 26, 2009 Report Share Posted August 26, 2009 Surely if the slime can grow then the chemicals are past their effectiveness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.