First Pond: Maintenance And Stocking Question

Maintenance
I want to clean my pond because the pond liner is very dirty (fully covered with brown dirt). I have a pump inside the pond, which is connected to a pressure filter (with UV) outside of the pond. I'm wondering if this is a good idea(?):
1. Remove some water from the pond, and while doing so, use it to rinse the sponges of the filter.
2. When the pond is half-empty and the filter is cleaned, remove the fish and place them in a bucket.
3. Clean the pond liner, just by using a cleaning cloth and the water that is still in the pond.
4. Remove the rest of the water from the pond, remove leaves that are in the water, clean the pump.
5. Refill the pond with water, use a product to remove chlorine, and put the fish back in.

If this isn't the way to do it, I would be glad to receive better options.

Stocking
My current stocking looks like this:
- 2 Yellow Comet Goldfish
- 4 Sarasa Goldfish
- 2 Shubunkin Goldfish
- 2 Golden Tench

I'm wondering if there are fish that I can add to this stocking list. I'm specifically looking for 2 types of fish:
- Cleanup crew. Some sort of fish that could help me keep the pond liner clean(er).
- Surface swimmers. A type of fish that likes to swim close to the surface, even with people around.

Thanks in advance!

Cheers

 

The method you described would be fine for cleaning the pond.

The first thing I would add to your stocking is 4+ more tench as they are schooling.

For surface swimmers I have found my goldfish come to the top as soon as I go over to the pond.

How big is the pond?

 

The pond is around 5.000 litres (1320 US Gallon). The walls of the pond also don't go straight down, it's a bit V-shaped. So the bottom is smaller than the surface.

I thought the Golden Tench weren't a schooling fish, so that's a mistake. I'll try to add 4 of them as soon as I can (after the cleaning is done).

Is it normal that I rarely see them though? I only seem to see 1 of them from time to time. Never the 2 of them together. I'm thinking they are mostly hiding in the fold of the pond liner (in the corners).

 

Also, what kind of Goldfish do you have? Mine always stay near the bottom when I'm sitting next to the pond.

I was thinking of maybe buying a handful of those fat, round types of Goldfish. Something like Ryukin Goldfish. But I don't really know how they behave, especially with the "regular" Goldfish I currently have already.

 

I have commons, comets, London shunbunkins, Bristol shubunkins and American/Japanese shubunkins and I plan to get fantails for a separate pond.
If you already have single tail goldfish then I don't think it would be a good idea to add fancies.

 

Ok, thanks for the info. I won't add those. Maybe it's better not to add anymore fish (apart from the Golden Tench), and see if the ones I have reproduce.

There's a small portion of the pond that's just 30 cm deep, with plants. So I think this would be a good place for laying their eggs (I'm thinking of my Sarasas). Although this portion of the pond is very close to the incoming stream of water from the pump/filter. So I'm not sure if that's ideal.

 

If you really want to breed your goldfish I recommend looking into DIY spawning mops, they've worked very well for me.

If you want variety in your goldfish you could add some shubunkins (though maybe I'm biased) they have lots of different colours and patterns, look really interesting and you can easily tell the difference between them.

 

I'll clean the pond this weekend, add some Shubunkins, Yellow Comets and Golden Tench.

Then I'll try to make a DIY Spawning Mop. Although I'm not sure what the best method for this is. How did you get your successful results?

I'm thinking of something like this:
- Stop the pump every morning until somewhere in the early afternoon, otherwise the water really flows too fast I think.
- Have a few custom made spawning mops floating in the water, like these:

- Checking the mops before I put the pump back on.
- If I see eggs, place them in a separate aquarium/bowl/bucket containing the same water as in the pond.
- Wait a few days until they hatch and give them proper food for about a month, until they are ready to go in the pond.

If that's not the best method, I'm happy to receive better options Thanks in advance.

 

I made my spawning mops by cutting loads of bits of wool to the same length then tying them around a cork so they float and the rest of the wool falls to the bottom of the tank/pond.

Don't stop the pump for too long or the BB will start to die off. Can you just slow the flow of the pump?

It will take longer than a month before they are ready to go in the pond.

 

Ok! Pretty sure my pump has different stands, I'm going to see if I can temporarily put it to one of the lowest. I'll do this while cleaning the pond (will be easier, the pump is 1,5 meters deep).

The wool/cork method is pretty much what I was thinking of, can't wait to see if it'll be effective with my fish too! Would be awesome!

I'll make a few of these before the weekend start, so I can put them to test immediately after cleaning the pond.

I just hope the Sarasas breed, although a bunch of Shubunkins or Yellow Comets would be appreciated too, so it doesn't really matter that much. Thanks for the info already! I'll let something know if all goes well (or if it doesn't) Thanks.

 

Awesome! Good luck!

I just hope the Sarasas breed, although a bunch of Shubunkins or Yellow Comets would be appreciated too, so it doesn't really matter that much

Yeah I've been trying really hard to breed my shubunkins but they haven't spawned yet however my commons and comets won't stop breeding! I'm currently raising 2 batches of common goldfish fry and 1 of common cross comet fry.

 

Oh that's awesome. But how can you even tell the difference? Or do you place the fish in separate breeding tanks so that you know of what fish the eggs came from?

 

How do I tell the difference between the fry? I have the fish in separate tanks for breeding. I actually wasn't expecting them to breed, they were in quarantine and just started spawning.

 

Wow. I hope it will be that easy for me too!

Oh but. Is it necessary (or better) to have the types of fish separated? Because my pond is just a combination of 4 types of fish, and I wanted to keep them all in there while trying to get them to breed.

 

Not necessary at all to separate them as long as you don't mind crossbreeds. To encourage them to breed it is best to split up the males and females for a few weeks beforehand.

I actually don't think breeding goldfish is easy. In that case it was but I think they spawned because they were kept in really bad conditions before I rescued them then the sudden better care triggered spawning.

 

No, I don't mind crossbreeds. I hope the cleaning of the pond, and thus new water, triggers something with mine then. Also I'm going to buy a few more, maybe the movement from the shop to an outdoor pond does something with them. Who knows

But I sort of know what to do now. I was first thinking that the part of the pond where it's not so deep and I have a lot of plants would be enough for new fish to be able to develop. Glad I know about the wool spawning mop now.

So thanks for all the help! Hope I'll be able to show some fry pictures after a while. We'll see

 

BottomDweller I think I see some eggs in my spawning mop. Really tiny white/translucent balls, I don't know what else it can be but eggs.

I have no idea what to do now though. I want to place them separately because I'm afraid my goldfish will eat the fry whenever they hatch (possibly, I don't know how I can make sure they are fertilized). I'm also scared that the pump might flush all of them down the filter.

Should I try to rinse the eggs off the spawning mop into a separate bucket/aquarium? Or should I just place the spawning mop entirely into a separate place?

I tried rinsing them off, but when I do this, I also rinse a lot of dirt off so the water in the separate bucket is very dirty.

Thanks in advance for the help!