Every day I bring you an item on Amazon that I personally use or has been purchased by many members of the audience and I have researched enough to recommend.

Today’s TSP Amazon Item of the day is Rosy Red Minnows from Toledo Goldfish. These guys are great for small scale aquatics because they show up due to color and are very hardy. They make great fish to watch, great feeder fish and great bait.

Today is kind of a landmark day for TSP and TspAz.com as I have never before reviewed or recommended a live critter on this site. Live plants sure, but fish in the mail. You bet, do it all the time in fact with my tropical fish.

Rosy Reds though are actually not tropical and they are native to the United States. If you are a fisherman you may know them by a different name, that name is the fathead minnow.

Wait what? I mean they are pink and look like little gold fish. Well they really don’t look like goldfish at all and are not related to any member of the carp family. They are a true minnow with a maximum size of about 3 inches but maxing out at 2.5-2.75 is more common for most of them.

The Rosy Red is simply a mutation of the standard fathead minnow. They actually originated in Arkansas and you can read their story here. This mutation is a form of amelinism. Clearly it offers very little advantage in the wild as it makes them more visible to predators. They are very easy to breed though so once the mutation is in captivity they can and are produced in the millions.

This makes them cheap and very useful as bait. Again they are also used as feeder fish for many predator fish along with reptiles like say ribbon snakes and some turtles. It also makes they great for small garden ponds that are rapidly out grown by goldfish or koi, like my new 250 gallon shallow habitat aviary pond in the video in the P.S.

Gonna also say that based on my experience here, I would not hesitate to get any fish or other critters that Toledo Goldfish sells. They also sell Shubunkin Gold Fish, Koi, Crayfish, Trapdoor Snails, Bullfrog Tadpoles, Mosquito Fish and many other critters and plants.

I ordered 500 large Rosy Reds for 106 bucks shipped. If you are thinking of ordering a small number just know they can handle dense population and the price per minnow really goes down with larger orders.  You can also order small size and save some money as well. For instance you can get 1,000 smalls for the cost of 500 large ones and they grow pretty fast.

Out of my 500 only one appeared to be a floater, but when I went to remove him, he “wasn’t dead yet” now for all I know he may be, “stone cold in a minute or two” but I gave him a chance to make it. I also just talked by text with my buddy David, he ordered 2,000 the same day I did. He got 1,000 rosies and 1,000 standard, of 2,000 fish he got one floater. That is pretty outstanding.

The only problem? Not really a problem but good to know, they were supposed to arrive on Wednesday but got here a day early. Something to have a contingency plan for indeed as a box of fish left in the sun for a day is not a good thing. They were packed with a cool pack though, “so you’ve got that going for you, which is nice”.

I know for some ordering live fish in the mail seems kinda scary. But the truth is all those fish at the fish store, most of em get there in the mail. Anyway if you have or are building a small pond and think it is a bit too small for gold fish or larger fish and you want something that will show up and be seen and is hearty, check out rosy reds. And again check out everything by Toledo Goldfish, so far I am a fan of their quality and service.

Remember you can always find all of our reviews at TspAz.com

P.S. – Here is a video of them going into their new home today, a full playlist of this project can be found here as well.