Tropical outdoor pond in Michigan

lousybreed

lousybreed

Aquaria Central Site Controller
Sep 7, 2004
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Bay Area, CA
I read an article AFM about keeping tropicals out in ponds during summer. I am planning on making a 670 gallon pond for the fish. This is roughly 2 feet deep, 10 feet long, and 4.5 feet wide. I am going to run some airlines underground to the pond location to power 2 large homemade sponge filters. I want to grow lilies, water hiathens (sp way wrong!), water lettuce, and some submergent plants. I plan on trying different crypts and swords as a side experiment. A 300W heater will be in there also as insurance for the cold nights. The pond will be half in ground and half above and will be lined with retaining wall bricks. A transparent top will be constructed for early/late season heat retention.

I plan on putting 8 goyder river bows, 15 cardinals, 4 pencil fish, 6 long finned white clouds (they can go out earlier) and 2 bristlenose plecos. They will have so much room to swim!

Has anyone ever attempted this before? Any tips or hints to make this work?
 
And what are you going to do with them during winter? I ask because a 300watt heater isn't even close to providing the needed heat to maintain the 70+ temp you will need-Anne
 
I live in Toledo, and you know as well as I do how cold it gets in the winter aound here. It will take a tremendous amount of heating power to keep tropical temps outside in your pond. I would guess the only feasable way to do it would be to cover the area with a greenhouse-like structure and place heaters inside.

I will assume with energy prices the way they are, this would be cost prohibitive.
 
Dudes, this is only for late spring thru early fall (late may-mid september).

I am not rich enough for year round with those crazy energy costs!!!
 
Your volume for this pond is roughly 673.25 gallons With an ambient temp of 70 degrees F and say a desired temp of 74F you'll nned approx 1132.44 watts of heat to
even approach a stable temp.This does not allow the open rapid loss of heat-Anne
 
Late May to early September? I'm from Ontario and lived several years in Michigan -- the weather isn't much different at all.

Have you forgotten how cold it gets at night in May and September? I've even seen snow in May. The temperature fluctuations will kill the cardinals easy and a 300w heater will not help with that. The only fish I can see that might be okay out there are the white clouds and *maybe* the rainbows, since they are Australian, but I even doubt they could survive the cold.

It doesn't even get decently warm at night in MI until late June and that only lasts until early September.

Roan
 
I was planning to build an above ground indoor pond in my garage this summer. My other thought was to build a greenhouse or sunroom addition to the garage for a temperate inground pond.
My gas bills this winter have pretty much flushed them plans down the toilet though. I can't imagine heating my garage all winter now.
 
Yeah... I'm not sure this is such a good idea either (a "neat" idea, certainly, but not a workable one). A 300w heater would, at the very least, be highly inadequate. (I grew up in Bowling Green, near Toledo... I remember the weather quite well, including the random but severe cold snaps in the Spring and Fall.) At a minimum, you'd need to beef up not just the heating but also put some serious insulation into those retaining walls and the "lid," and I don't see any of that being feasible given what you've said.

And, of course, the question remains as to what you'd do with them during the winter.
 
It doesn't seem like you would even be able to see those fish in a pond. They are relatively small, and viewed from above with surface movement, I just don't think it would look that nice.
 
I am not building this pond for veiwing fish but rather making an ideal habitat for breeding and conditioning. The fish placed in the pond will be from my aquarium. Considering that lakes get into the low 70's in june, if I have to wait till then that is fine. I am not too worried about this experiment, if it doesn't get warm enough, then I shift my species that i keep outside....
 
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