got a small pond, 24 in x 24 in x 8in, at my balcony. it's currently housing 3 swordtails which were orphaned from my planted tank.

had 2 attempts with GF but were unsuccessful. possible reason, i did not upkeep my water. at that time, i was kinda lazy...did not change water weekly.

i plan to give it another attempt.
- do i need to do a complete water change and then cycle the pond before i add in GF? ie; re-start the whole setup?
- the max no of fishes i can get in this pond?
- any desired PH & KH levels of the water?
- is an airstone needed? my existing setup is more like a water feature pond, it can be viewed here. http://www.arofanatics.com/members/af2373/pond/
- presently, filtration is done by a small (400l/hr) internal filter, is this sufficient?
- anything else i need to take note of??

thks in adv pp!!

If you have fish in your pond now, and the water is fine I don't think you need to start new. I'd put the fish in there. PH should be between 7 -8, although higher isn't too bad, mine is at 9.

On filtration, I think I can see water movement in the picture and it pretty much moves over the surface. This is probably enough but an airstone isn't going to hurt. The more air the better. I'd rather you put an airstone in than put in too large a pump, the fish may not like to strong a current .

The pond looks nice and I wish I could have helped more. I am sure that someone will step in. It seems things are slowing down around here a bit but understand it's spring in the states and that means lots of pond work is being done right now. I wouldn't be good at suggesting how many fish because I would over stock and that isn't good. But of course I want more more more! Can't help myself. I'm trying to get myself in the less is good mode of thinking. The more fish you get though the more waste and Gold Fish are one of the worst at that. So you'll have to remember to do your cleaning or else your not going to be successful. They are hardy fish. I think I'd have people on here calling the ASPCA on me and certainly kick me off the board if I said how long it's been since I've cleaned out my gold fish tank. There are only two fish in 30 gallons, so nobody get too wild on me here! Less is good if you are like me and find the chore of cleaning out the tank to be one that is easily forgotten. They are deffinately going outside soon!


I hope someone else helps out here.

Scott

God! tat's a real pond u got there!! B) u've got some lovely koi in there!!

real cool! how i wish property prices are cheaper over here so tat i can afford a house like tat........ <_<

my only worry now is the maintenance of the water quality.... u see, i've got pebbles all over the bottom of my fibre glass pond....hence all the waste from the GF would sink and be trapped between the pebbles. getting rid or clearing them would be quite a task. maybe i would consider removing all the pebbles....hmm....

i reckon my previous failures with GF were attributed to the above reason coupled with the fact tat i was lazy with weekly water change.

i may consider getting a cannister filter for the pond. gotta settle the water quality before embarking on the project....

thks for yr advice, scott!

Thanks for the nice complements.

I would take the pebbles out of the bottom. You could also build a Trickle Tower which would help your filtration a lot. They don't look very good though. On one of these threads Jetman posted a picture of his trickle tower, I'll have to search for it when I have time so you can see what it looks like.

Yes weekly water changes will do it as well.


Scott