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Garden Pond

Started by Guest_Fenway_* , Apr 27 2013 01:47 PM

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14 replies to this topic

#1 Guest_Fenway_*

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Posted 27 April 2013 - 01:47 PM

We have built a garden pond that is around 1,200 gallons. It is almost 13 feet wide and around 19 feet long. It has some shelves in it. We're looking into something for aeration. What would be good fish that we would see a lot in there and what plants could I put in the shallow areas to help toad eggs/tadpoles? It has 5 lily plants in now that we bought yesterday. Thanks for your help.

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#2 Guest_Subrosa_*

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Posted 27 April 2013 - 02:02 PM

By my calculation your pond is about 8" deep! It holds a bit more water than you thought, I think! Sadly most native fish aren't very attractive when viewed from above as in a pond. That's the whole reason Koi are so popular, they're big and brightly colored on their backs.

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#3 Guest_Fenway_*

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Posted 27 April 2013 - 03:15 PM

Wow, the first shelf is 10" deep, then 1.5', and then 2.5'. Part of the liner package said that if there was 10 in on all sides on land it would hold 1,200 gallons. Just more water for me. We were thinking of goldfish because we don't particularly like koi and couldn't think of anything that would look good from above. I wanted to do bluegill and sunfish, but I'll hardly see them, defeating the purpose of the pond.

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#4 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 27 April 2013 - 05:12 PM

If I had a pond I'd stick a few breeding pairs of one of my favorite species of fish in it. Then at the end of the year I'd drain the pond, put the dozens of new baby fish into pre-prepared holding tanks, and sell them off over the winter. To me that would be the prettiest pond

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#5 Michael Wolfe

Board of Directors

North Georgia, Oconee River Drainage

Posted 27 April 2013 - 05:42 PM

You will see sunfish much more than you think. Especially if you feed the fish... regular cichlid pellets are usually accepted. And even begged for once they figure out you are the food dude. Something bolder and bright colored like a longear or a pumpkinseed will be more visible. Ina pond that bog you might be able to have some species of starhead topminnow as well. They are interesting from above, and stay close to the surface and near the plants.

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin

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#6 Guest_Fenway_*

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Posted 27 April 2013 - 07:06 PM

When I said 13'x20' I meant the liner, not the pond itself. Sorry for the confusion. Went to a local plant nursery and got quite a few plants for the pond.

@EricaWieser- I was trying to figure out what fish I really like that would reproduce and thrive really well in the pond and that would not be totally worthless when it's time to offload.
@Michael Wolfe- I was planning on putting in a few sunfish no matter what. I was thinking of buying a couple pairs of longears or pumpkinseeds online.

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#7 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 27 April 2013 - 07:45 PM

@EricaWieser- I was trying to figure out what fish I really like that would reproduce and thrive really well in the pond and that would not be totally worthless when it's time to offload.
@Michael Wolfe- I was planning on putting in a few sunfish no matter what. I was thinking of buying a couple pairs of longears or pumpkinseeds online.

Be careful; if you put sunfish in there they'll eat whatever other fish you try to breed. Breeding setups tend to be one species only. You are in a unique position to choose your fish now, before you put anything else in. You might want to contact your local fish and wildlife department to see what the laws are for selling fish native to your state. The only reason they let me ship off Elassoma gilberti and gold Heterandria formosa is because neither is found in the wild in the state I live in. But because the fish is not native to your state, I would check the local laws about pond stocking. Technically the species you breed will most likely be 'invasive' in the sense that it's not native to your region. I use indoor aquariums to breed my fish but I can imagine that for outdoor pond stocking this might be an issue to check the laws about before doing.

If it were me I'd try leptolucania ommata. Here's why:
1) Hundreds of one inch long fish are more difficult for neighborhood predatory animals to empty a pond of than half a dozen large fish.
2) Easy marketing: the fish is one inch long and permanently colorful, perfect for community tanks.
3) Easy to transition to indoors after draining the pond due to its one inch size. You could keep them in a rack of 10 gallon tanks, which are like $15 each new and often less on craigslist.
4) Virtual monopoly; they are not bred easily (at all?) in home aquariums and wild caught ones can only be caught in summer and in permit-limited numbers. Also, they live in alligator infested waters in the wild, which decreases the number of competitors willing to hop in and dipnet them out.

Man, I kind of wish I owned my own house now, so I could have a pond. *sighs* Apartment life...

Edit: Oh yeah, did I mention they are lemon yellow? Every time you fed the pond it would be like the wind sweeping through a thousand daffodil flowers. Image from Jonah's Aquarium: http://www.jonahsaqu...e/lommata01.jpg

Edited by EricaWieser, 27 April 2013 - 08:05 PM.

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#8 Michael Wolfe

Board of Directors

North Georgia, Oconee River Drainage

Posted 27 April 2013 - 08:52 PM

Erica, all of that was exactly correct... except for the details of 4... they can be bred in home aquariums (heck even I did it and I am not good at breeding). See post 56 here in this thread. http://forum.nanfa.o..._omatta__st__40 And we did not even see any alligators when we all caught L.ommata in several places when we went Back to the Swamp! It is not that intimidating to get out in the swamp.

But your advice about putting Lemon Swamp Killis in a pond is spot on!

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin

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#9 Guest_Fenway_*

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Posted 28 April 2013 - 08:29 AM

@EricaWieser- The sunfish I planned on putting in are very tine juveniles. We caught them while seining a creek by where we live and my sisters kept them and put them in our turtle tank. I was going to check before buying anything. Those are very cool fish. I'm gonna have to check them out. We are going to build a wall of flat rocks with an overhang around the pond, once we have enough rock, to keep predator animals out and our turtles in, if we decide at some point we want them in there.

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#10 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 28 April 2013 - 10:11 AM

@EricaWieser- The sunfish I planned on putting in are very tine juveniles. We caught them while seining a creek by where we live and my sisters kept them and put them in our turtle tank. I was going to check before buying anything. Those are very cool fish. I'm gonna have to check them out. We are going to build a wall of flat rocks with an overhang around the pond, once we have enough rock, to keep predator animals out and our turtles in, if we decide at some point we want them in there.

Okay, well, tiny sunfish grow up to be big sunfish that eat little fish. And turtles can be piscivorous, too. You've got to protect your one inch fish. They can very easily be eaten by larger fish and predators.

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#11 Guest_Fenway_*

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Posted 28 April 2013 - 04:15 PM

Even if we build the wall with the overhang I'm not to keen on putting the turtles in. We went to a local pet store and they had a few big goldfish my mom loved, so we ended up getting them.

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#12 Michael Wolfe

Board of Directors

North Georgia, Oconee River Drainage

Posted 28 April 2013 - 10:00 PM

boo - orange carp

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin

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#13 Guest_fundulus_*

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Posted 28 April 2013 - 10:10 PM

boo - orange carp Like.

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#14 Guest_Fenway_*

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Posted 29 April 2013 - 07:07 AM

Yeah they're not native, but only one is orange. At home we weren't getting anywhere with anything native, and my mom really like the goldfish. Now we were trying to to get filtration and aeration for it.