?Anyone keeps other fish in ponds, besides Koi and Goldfish?

Originally posted by Auren
...there is small ponds of 200gal or less, which are not that deep and you can easely keep tropical fish...
Click to expand...

Ahhh... but if you have a pond of 200 gallons or less, then your dealing with other issues like severe temperature swings. Especially if you live at a place like northern U.S. where it isn't 85 during the day and 78 at night. We are talking 15-20 degree drops in summer nights across much of the U.S.

I dont know how wise that would be...:(
 
I am not familiar with much of the weather in the US, except I know that in the north or other such places like Colorado where it snows it is much difficult. Other than that, using submersible heaters like those from Clepto are a good solution you can keep them at a certain temperature and most of those heaters are 500watts or more (I know a great disadvantage is the electricity bill).

What you can do is distribute heaters along the outside pond, depending on the size (preferably 500 gallons or less, otherwise consider gas heaters), then you connect some of those heaters to a timer that keeps themo off during the hottest hours of the day, and when it gets cold or at night (mostly) you set the timer to turn them on. I know here in central Mexico the weather isnt so variable, but I guess it could work in the U.S as well.
 
To keep things in perspective, my tropical pond is about 3' deep with crystal clear water (two 25 watt uvs). I can see the pacus and barbs anytime during the day, particularly at feeding time, but they swim around all day long. The catfish and plecs are a little more diffuclt. The plecs you can see once in a while during the day and once the evening comes, you can see most of the catfish very well. Basically, it just depends on how clear your ponds is and how well you keep it.
 
LOL

here in Michigan, we have to keep our ponds about 4 feet deep or else they would freeze over, at least most of the way anyway.

So my deepest end of the pond is about 4.5 feet. I can hardly see my fish, unless they come up near the surface. And I'd like to think I keep my pond clean... :o
 
The salt water pond seems very interesting, The article in the magazine only mentions that it is possible to have one, yet it does not specify or goes into any details on how it works and what type of fish are in it. It would be very intersting to see some specs on that

Brian: It would be great to exchange some images on our ponds, but I am not familiar with the site, I guess you have to be a senior member to post images. In regards to your pond How many Gallons/Liters of water do you have? Are you planning on adding more different fish in it?

I also keep my water clear, with a sumbersible pump conected to the UV I mentioned earlier and to a Hagen 404 filter, and another 700 gal/hr sumbersible pump to make some water flow, this and some barley straw to help combat the green algea. The problem is that sometimes, and even with prefilter/sponge the intake of the pump clogs very fast. What I am trying is to elevate the pump, on top of a brick, maybe that will work better, and I need to add another filter of my own with much more biological media.
 
Brian: It would be great to exchange some images on our ponds, but I am not familiar with the site, I guess you have to be a senior member to post images. In regards to your pond How many Gallons/Liters of water do you have? Are you planning on adding more different fish in it?
Click to expand...

Actually, I have two ponds. I am not very good at capturing fish in photos, but I do have some pond pics.
I will try to get them uploaded within a few days or so. I need to add them to my web site and then link that.

As for the ponds,
Goldfish pond is 8 x 8 x2.5 for about 1200 gallons. It houses a sailfin pleco and about a dozen common goldfish. Tropical pond is 16*12*3 for about 4300 gallons and it houses 4 pacus, 3 channel cats, 1 sailfin pim, 1 giraffe cat, 8 tinfoil barbs, 4 common plecs, 100's of mosquito fish.

I was having a problem with the massive breeding of the mosquito fish, but the channel cats seemed to have curbed that.

I feel like I am pretty well stocked right now.
 
I have debated salt water but it is a very expensive proposition. Unless you have access to pure salt water, it would be very difficult and expensive to keep the salinity level and of couse the fish can consume a lot of $$$ as well.
 
And I guess you would have to live near a Coast to have more chances of succes with a salt water pond.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom