Outside pond inherited

[flutterbye75]

Hi everyone, although I am not new to aquaria central, I am new to pond keeping. I moved into a house that has an outside pond filled with about 12 4 inch goldfish. All I know is that they need to be fed and the filter needs to be rinsed out every month. Can anyone help me, I would like to clean out the whole pond, it has alot of leaves in the bottom. I want to do this right.
Thanks

[flutterbye75]

Well, never mind about the fish in the outside pond..........I went to feed them today and they were......ALL GONE......... :sad: :thud: I guess I will have to start over...... :sad: This time the net is going over them asap.

[greendeltatke]

I wonder if they stocked the pond just to help sell the house. I know people sometimes buy a bunch of house plants to show their houses.

[flutterbye75]

I guess my next question would be what to stock the pond with now.....I have no idea what can go in there other than goldfish

[*TJ]

Hi Flutterbye,
I think you had a two legged visitor, a heron. They can clean out a pond pretty quick. A net is a good idea, and 3' bamboo stakes around the pond will help.

Since you are starting over, yes the pond needs a very good clean, all mulm from the bottom needs to be removed. If there is nice fluffy algae on the pond walls.. leave it there as it's helpful. If there are any plants in the pond now would be an ideal time to repot them into fresh soil(regular topsoil with a bit of clay mix).

Question for you, is this a rock bottomed pond(ADI aquascape type) or just a bare liner bottom?

Once you've got the cleanup finished try and find a place to rent a water meter and use this while filling the pond so you will have an aqurate gallonage - this is important if for any reason you might have to treat the pond with medicines/chemicals. Let it sit for a couple days(with the pump running) to bring the water temperture up. Before adding fish add a dechlor like amquel or prime to knock off any residule chlorine/chloramine.

Fish..., Where in Canada are you? You can add goldfish again if you like them. Wakin are quite hardy and very lively pretty goldfish. Shubunkins are fun colourful goldfish with flowing fins. Depending on the gallons/size of your pond you might be able to add Koi or Golden Orfe, these fish tend to get rather large and need lots of space(water).

BTW, pond filters should be cleaned on a weekly basis... a month is too long.

[flutterbye75]

Hi TJ

Thanks for your reply....The pond that is outside is a rock bottom pond....although it wouldn't be hard to have it either way. As far as the heron, im pretty sure that is what visited the pond, my husband is fixing a net to go over it this weekend....I have no idea what size the pond is....I could easily say that it is 4 feet by 6 feet and about 2 feet deep, that is the part that houses the fish.....you can do the math? I am fixing to clean the bottom and the filter this weekend....I took a look at some fish the other day and they all look nice.....the Shubunkins are cute....my pond is probably not big enough for Koi as I heard they get pretty big. Anyways.....Im still not sure...I want to make sure that the pond is in prime shape before adding any more fish. I have bamboo plants and pompas (sp?) grass growing outside and around the pond....I also have some grasses in pots inside the pond. Is there anything that you recomend for inside the pond as far as pond flowers?

[*TJ]

Here's a half decent calculator http://www.urdls.com/j/pondcalc.htm , it does not take into consideration the pond may have shelves.... this will effect the number of gallons. I don't know the shape of your pond or what shelving you might have but just as a guess I'd say your pond is over 200 US gallons but under 500 US gallons - I would think on the lower end as you have stone in there displacing water(this is why I suggested a water meter while filling). And your thoughts about your pond being too small for koi are correct but for a few nice goldfish it's fine - just keep the number of fish on the low side (or mother nature will do it for you).

With a rock bottomed pond you should be vaccuuming about once a week along with cleaning your filter, it's important not to let to much mulm accumilate as this will become a breeding ground for "nasties" as well as poisonous gases.

Plants are a personal choice. I don't do tropicals other than floaters like hyacinth for the simple fact that tropicals are expensive and I do not have space to over winter them indoors - the floaters just go into the composter. I suggest you stick with hardy marginal plants like pickerel rush, marsh marigold, sweet flag, water iris, flowering rush, dwarf cattail, bog bean, etc., and one small to medium hardy water lily, bloom colour your choice.