Starting a small pond.

Hey everyone, I am thinking about starting a really small pond in my backyard next summer, so I want to know as much as I can about ponds until then. I'm going to get one of those preformed ponds, but I don't know what kind of fish to put in and how to setup and maintain one. Any help/advice.

 

How many gallons?

Keep in mind that the smaller the pond and/or the more heavily stocked it is, the more you have to treat it like an aquarium in terms of water changes.

If you have a lightly stocked pond with lots of plants, then you can get away with only doing maybe one or two water changes/year and those are mainly just to clean it up.

And if you plan on leaving the fish in the pond for the winter, you'll have to either get a pond heater or make sure it's deep enough. I wouldn't get a pond that's any less than 2' deep. If you're somewhere up north, you may want to aim for 3' (but most preformed ponds aren't that deep). Around here, the winters can get 20* - 0* and the owner of the pond store said his fish winter fine in 2 1/2' deep ponds (of course that was after I'd already dug a 4' deep hole for my pond :roll: ).

Another reason to have it relatively deep is to avoid losing fish to preditors. If your pond is only about 12" deep, it will be very easy for a racoon to scoop up fish. But if it's at least 2' deep, a racoon will be less likely to want to swim to catch a fish.

If the pond is less than 100ish gallons, I'd actually recommend going with rosey minnows instead of goldfish. They're vert active and are bright orange so they really stand out against a black liner. And they only get about 2" so you could fit quite a few in a small pond w/o having too much bioload. The only problem is they're normally sold as feeders or bait so they may not bee too healthy. So don't be to surprised if a few die within the first few days. I bought 12 and lost 4 within the first 3 days, but the 8 I have left are doing great.

-Chelle

 

1. In terms of size, I was thinking possibly between 50 to 200 gallons. I really don't want to go big.

2. I am planting on putting in a couple plants.

3. I'm not going to keep the fish out in the pond over the winter.

4. In terms of stocking with fish, I would have rosy minnows in it but I wanted something a bit bigger like a common (if it won't get too big) or more like a shubunkin.

 

You could try a common, but I'm not sure if it would try eating the minnows when it got bigger. Personally, I would go with shubunkins mainly because they don't get as large.

-Chelle

 

Plus they look great. I forgot how big they max out on average is it 8'' ?

 

T Chelle where did u get ur 50 gallon tub? I have a Play house i dont use anymore :roll: ya thats it i dont use it..But anyways i have my dirtbike in there and there is still alot of room i wanna get a 50g tub and make like a gold fish tub/pond

 

I got the tub at Lowes. One minor problem with it though is when it was full of water the sides bowed out. I ended up putting one side up aganst the wall and for the other side I put a long board up against it and put a cargo strap around the whole thing and tightened it. And FWIW, it turned out the pond didn't have a leak like we though, the hose for the pump just got moved a little and it kept splashing out of the pond. So we took the opportunity to clean it up really well, refilled it, and returned all the fish.

And yes, shubunkins get around 8". I really like them because they look like miniature kio (difficult to tell them apart when they're small) but they don't get 3' long.

-Chelle

 

Yah i didnt relise how big coy got i just watched Duce Bigalo! and hes a fish guy some koi are biigggg... Good movie :y_the_best:

 

ARe they just as calm as koi in the fact that if you stick your hand in the water the koi won't swim away but try and see if there is any food in your hand? Also, this guy at one of my lfs told me that they only get as big as their surrondings and at that time I was young and keep them in a smaller than usual aquarium, is that true?

 

Mine are still a bit skittish, but I haven't had them for a really long time.

And yes, keeping a fish in too small of a tank will stunt their growth, but it is REALLY bad for them. It can cause deformities, weakened immune system, and premature death.

-Chelle

 

Wow, thats not what the guy at the lfs said. Lol. He said that if I'm not getting a pond then I could put them in like a 20 gallon tank.