f_i_e_a

My family just recently got a new 160 gallon pond and since I am the fish keeper in the house, they asked me to help out. Unfortunately I have no idea how to keep a pond, only aquariums. So, at the moment, we have a 160 gallon pond filled with a bit of water to keep my dad's water plants alive until we figure out what we are doing. I don't know what kind of equipment I need to run a pond, so if someone could fill me in that woudl be great. We live in Southern California so the temperature does not change all that much and we plan on keeping some fancy goldfish to add some color. If anyone has some reccomendations or tips on how to run a pond and what equipment to use, I would love to hear it. Also, do I need gravel or is the dirt from the plants enough?

cichlid seeker

you could put gravel in it or keep bare bottom I know you need some kind of big pump to pump the water it is somewhat like an oversized filter.

cicfishman

well i had a pond for 3 years and i started up with a cheezy cheap fountain pump and filter.DO NOT do that the water is salways dirty, you want to get a good pump and filter WITH a UV light that kills algae and makes it very clear and you can make a nice waterfall.Its a little hard setting up you need tubing from the pump inside your pond going to the filter. Thats the most important thing

gremlin

Drs Foster & Smith has some good pressure filters with uv light. That is almost a requirement with an outdoor pond. How much sun does your pond get? Most water plants will need at least 4-5 hours of sun a day to do well, but a lot of the underwater grasses want only filtered sun. Goldfish do quite well in an outdoor pond. Koi are good also, but they have a tendency to eat any of your pond plants. I recommend contacting your local cooperative extension office to see if you can get some mosquito fish. They will eat any mosquito larvae that WILL happen in your pond. You can buy them, but a lot of the coop ext offices will give them away free if there are mosquito problems in your area. are you going to put your pond in the ground or keep it as a raised pond? I dug down about 6 inches then built a rock wall all around it and back filled with dirt. Mine is in full sun until about 1 pm so I have a hard time keeping plants around it. (Phoenix, AZ) I planted dichondera (grass) and some wooly thyme and silver thyme and lemon thyme and stone crop around it. They all look pretty sad right now since it is so hot. I have water lillies in my pond with about 12 goldfish and several dozen mosquito fish. The string algae was getting so bad in my pond I was pulling fist sized wads out every day. I put a couple of algae eaters in (& my sisters pleco that outgrew her tank) and the algae sort of just disappeared in about a week (love those algae eaters!) Any way, good luck with your pond!

f_i_e_a

Thanks for the advice. My pond gets ALOT of sunlight. We didn't want any leaves to fall in, so my pond gets TONS of sunlight. So far we have one flourishing pink waterlily, 3 big water hyacinths, and 8 water lettuce. I tried to get alot of surface coverage so there wouldn't be so much algae. The algae now sticks to the sides of the walls. I don't mind it so much cuz it doesn't disturb anything and its not horrible to look at. We added a small pleco (3") in there but I can't really see the difference. My mom wouldn't get the bigger one (10") cuz she said it was too scary. :] We probably should get mosquito fish but I don't want them to reproduce... we put some feeder goldfish in there to help the cycle along and test out the setup (out of 10, 3-4 passed away), then we put in 4-5 koi (when we bought them they were only 1-2" long). The fish havent' grown a whole lot, but since we see them everyday we probably can't tell the difference. I'm looking out for a UV filter, but haven't found one yet. The algae doesn't really bother me so if I find one, good, if I don't, thats ok.

gremlin

Try drsfostersmith.com for the uv filter. I got my pressure filter with the uv light from them. The chinese algae eater actually is doing a better job at cleaning the moss of the walls than the pleco is. I would love water lettuce and water hyacinths but they are illegal in Arizona so I can't get them shipped here or find them locally...We used to have them and they grew so fast I was throwing bucketsfull into our mulch pit each week...Then it got too hot and they all died. Oh well, the water lilies are nice shade for the fish...

gremlin