Quote:
Originally Posted by tigger
And now we have a pond.
|
So how's the drainage? 3 of my first 4 jobs were in pet shops working with freshwater fish--do you have a natural filter or something mechanical? Activated carbon can help scrub the water, but you also need something that will oxygenate it (is it very windy where you are, because the ripples can help with that). Without those two things, the fishies'll wind up swimming in the liquid equivalent of LA on a bad air day (i.e., no air, in their own filth--no offense to LA residents, but that's what happens when you overpopulate a basin that gets wind but is bottled up by mountain ranges that prevent the pollution to dissipate). You'll need something hardy without a doubt (carp are usually pretty good), and you might need to cover the pond, depending on how big & deep it is, at night to keep wildlife away with something like a chicken wire screen. One thing you don't want is for the water to just stand there, since mosquitoes breed in still water, algae grows fast in it and so on, but even if you give it a good stir every day you can probably get oxygen in for the fish, keep the algae and skeeters from taking hold and so on. One last thing, but there's this general rule of thumb for populating a pond or aquarium that goes for every gallon of water you have, you can have up to 1 inch of fish, so if you take a 20 gallon aquarium and stick 20 1" tetras in it, you're at the maximum level that size tank can support. I used to keep something bigger though--a nice 100 gallon aquarium with a couple S. American catfish (plecostimus & hoplo), a couple silver dollars, an oscar and a black pacu. The oscar grew to 12", the pacu, when I got rid of him, was 18", the silver dollars topped out at about 4" and the cats were 18" & 6". I also ran a pair of Marineland Emperors Bio-wheels & a Marineland HOT Magnum canister, but still had to do a 30% water change monthly. I still have the equipment & tank, but the floor of my apt. can't hold up so much weight (8.4 pounds per gallon, plus about 40 pounds of gravel, the rocks, the acrylic tank itself, filters, &c., adds up to close to 1000 pounds all in all in roughly a 3" x 5" base
)