For what it's worth, I don't think you have much of a problem if you get some shade over it early on to knock down the algae growth.
I've had a very small container pond in my back yard for several years now, roughly a 10 gallon pot, but with plants and gravel I would say 5 gallons of water. It gets full sun during much of the day (I live in So Cal near Los Angeles.)
It's entirely passive -- has never had a filter, waterfall, or any other pumping going on. No idea about how hot it gets, but in the summer it does evaporate the best part of half a gallon per day, which I top off with RO from the kitchen.
After the first couple of weeks I've done maybe one partial water change a year.
I have had a huge problem with algae (anyone surprised?) for most of that time, even though there were no fish in the pot -- hair / filamentary algae, not green water. I have always believed that the fertilized potting soil of the plants that I put in was driving this. To this day I pull handfuls of algae out, although now it's once every few weeks rather than every day or so.
About a year ago I succeeded in getting mosquito fish to live in it. (As indicated above, I got them free from the county mosquito vector folks.) Previous attempts ended up with dead fish, which I suspect was because the algae sucked the oxygen down to zero at night.
(Before the fish got established I would clear out the algae, sweep a fine fish net through the water, and dump any mosquito larvae into the aquarium.)
The fish population has been self-maintaining for over a year, so they seem to be doing OK. For all practical purposes I've never fed them. Don't see as lot of them because they're usually hiding in the plants.
If I had it to do over, I'd try shading it more and maybe putting Florida flagfish in to see if they could keep the algae down.
I've had a very small container pond in my back yard for several years now, roughly a 10 gallon pot, but with plants and gravel I would say 5 gallons of water. It gets full sun during much of the day (I live in So Cal near Los Angeles.)
It's entirely passive -- has never had a filter, waterfall, or any other pumping going on. No idea about how hot it gets, but in the summer it does evaporate the best part of half a gallon per day, which I top off with RO from the kitchen.
After the first couple of weeks I've done maybe one partial water change a year.
I have had a huge problem with algae (anyone surprised?) for most of that time, even though there were no fish in the pot -- hair / filamentary algae, not green water. I have always believed that the fertilized potting soil of the plants that I put in was driving this. To this day I pull handfuls of algae out, although now it's once every few weeks rather than every day or so.
About a year ago I succeeded in getting mosquito fish to live in it. (As indicated above, I got them free from the county mosquito vector folks.) Previous attempts ended up with dead fish, which I suspect was because the algae sucked the oxygen down to zero at night.
(Before the fish got established I would clear out the algae, sweep a fine fish net through the water, and dump any mosquito larvae into the aquarium.)
The fish population has been self-maintaining for over a year, so they seem to be doing OK. For all practical purposes I've never fed them. Don't see as lot of them because they're usually hiding in the plants.
If I had it to do over, I'd try shading it more and maybe putting Florida flagfish in to see if they could keep the algae down.
