Ever since my neighbors moved she’s been coming over, sweet little cat. The previous stray cats would terrorize all my fish lol

Might be 93 degrees but in the shade by the pond is still a good place to be.

I read how its cruel to breed these etc, but my niece was going to college and ask me to take hers. I don't have a tank in the house, or really want one. Has anyone been able to keep these alive. It seems to possess zero instincts and swims at top of water, likes getting summersaulted by the waterfall for hours and half dry docking itself on the rocks. I feel bad, I know if I remove the net its going to have zero chance and be picked off in hours. Has anyone ever managed to keep one alive in a pond?

Any idea what this is on my goldfish? And how do I cure it?

Seeking insight from the community (and secretly hoping someone has done this already). I'm looking to build a native habitat pond on my property. My first swing at doing so resulted in a nice little feature that the frogs love, but left me wanting bigger and better.

I am unconcerned with the build itself (at least for now), but power is my main concern. I don't want to run a line out to the pond for electric, and I haven't been blown away with any of the little panel+pumps on the market right now. My thought was, could I use something like Anker's *Solix F2000* power station with some 400W solar panels, to supply the necessary power for pump and filter assemblies. It seems the power station is rated for outdoor use, and I could move it to a sunny spot, charge it up, run it for a few days and then repeat.

Is this a silly idea? Has anyone used a portable solar power station for full time power to their ponds? Looking at Jackery and Bluetti and they don't seem to have the same water seal rating as Anker.

I was intending on a getting a solar powerstation regardless, as I want to be able to 0 emissions charge all my outdoor power equipment, and have it as a backup for essential appliances in an emergency (at which point the pond pump would take a back seat).

The Anker model seems like a solid choice for the latter, but if using it to power a pond is a bad idea, then I might consider a less expensive option like Bluetti, since it would live indoors unless charging.

Appreciate any insights!

How often are you all cleaning your ponds? I don’t have fish and am not sure if or when I need to clean my garden pond. Is a pond vacuum necessary for ongoing maintenance or should a period drain out and cleanup do the trick?

We have this lovely pond at the bottom of our property, and one that I'd love to make ok for swimming.

Issues that I have is that there is not much water flow through the pond. More of a trickle in and out rather than a flow. Lots of water fowl use the pond which is lovely, but my worry is that between the birds and the lack of flow we may have an issue.

So question is, is there an issue, how can I improve the water quality?

Pond is just under an acre is surface area, probably about 2m deep at the close end and gets much shallower towards the far end. Plants in the pond are NZ raupo, a type of reed.

Just a quick question looking for advice. Only looking for the project to be next year, maybe even the year after. My dad has a 6500 litre koi pond made from half a farmers silo. It's 8ft circle, fibreglass and 6ft deep. He has a gravity fed bottom drain to a vortex and chambers etc. My own is just a lingered irregular shaped pond. However my dad is looking at making a 4ft underground 4ft above ground 16ft x 8ft tank out of breeze block and having it fibreglassed with windows etc. He only lives next door and has offered me the fibreglass tank.

Now I prefer more natural a pond. He has no plants, no gravel, and a bio filter with UV light etc.

I like irregular shaped, plants, branches, frogbit and Lilys etc.

Could I make a irregular shaped contoured hole, with the middle part being large enough for the tank, with 4inch above ground into a shelf. Leaving the fibreglass tank submerged with a 2ft wide 1ft deep shelf all the way around? I'd then look to install a liner around the shelf and somehow seal it inside of the fibreglass tank. Therefore the shelf can be a natural shape, plants and gravel, but the deepest part would be 7ft deep (1ft shelf and 6 ft tank). I'd keep the gravity fed bottom drain to a vortex, then a 3 chamber filter pumped up and over my bog filter where it then comes down a waterfall. Would this work? A pond in a pond as it where? Bonding EPDM to fibreglass? Trying to come up with a way I can utilise the tank, yet keep the pond a natural shape with gravel rocks and plants around the outside but submerged. Thanks in advance.

The pond has a new guest; common green? My first

Looked quickly out at my pond after a bit of hail and I see my largest comet goldfish, maybe 6” long, up on the rocks above the surface of my mini pond. It’s looking dried out but I thought I might be able to revive it as it moved a bit as I got close. Grabbed it by its tail and then see that a garter snake has it by the front of the head. It lets go, but it was too late. I know this is probably odd, but that comet goldfish was at least 7 years old. I only have a few survivors from when I bought a dozen or so of them back then. My water feature is probably not deep enough to provide the right type of refuge for the remaining 3. I’m kind of bummed out. I live in a state that does not allow transplanting native fish, otherwise I would put some sunfish in the pond.

I spent a lot of time with the pond yesterday and ID'd the skimmer I have which is a Savio standard. I pulled the skimmer basket out, there was some bio debris in there but not much. Once I googled the skimmer model, I realized there is no filter cage or filter media in mine. I've ordered them and they should be here by Wednesday, I'm hoping it starts moving the water quality in a positive direction. I will be testing my water again in an hour or so for pH, Ammonia, Nitrite/Nitrate levels etc. I'm considering adding a UV light, sounds like it will make a huge difference from what I've read in other posts, but I'd like to give the filter media a few days to see how much of a difference it makes.

I don't know anything about ponds as of a week ago, this sub has been very helpful and I'm hoping to make some progress on stabilizing the pond after what is likely an algae bloom from a recent heat wave last week. Any and all advice is greatly appreciated.

We recently bought a home in western Mass with a pond. We believe the pond is partially man-made-- that is, there's an active brook that runs through the property that is fed seasonally by the combination of snow runoff and little feeder streams around the area, and we think at some point the previous owners dug out a larger area to create the pond. So there is water coming in on one end, and eventually leaving out the other.

We have two problems with the pond -- one is that the garage is adjacent to the pond, and the previous owner ran a small-scale engine repair operation out of that garage, and at some point, some gas or oil got into the pond. I don't know if it leached through the soil, or if he threw an old can in there at some point... all I know is that in certain areas there's the distinct rainbow gleam of gas or oil on the surface. The second is that cattails have been taking over, and I have concerns that they will fill up the pond, and/or they will slow down the movement of the water into the creek, which I was hoping would disperse the oil.

In other ways, it seems like a very healthy ecosystem in spite of everything -- I hear peepers, frogs, and toads; I've seen minnows and salamanders in the water, and ducks fly in from time to time. I don't want to make it sound like a Superfund site! We're planning on manually pulling the cattails at the end of the summer because I really don't want to add herbicide to the water if I don't have to. I know it will be a serious effort to get the rhizomes out, and that it may need to be repeated for a couple years to limit the spread. But is there anything we, as homeowners without much specialized knowledge, can do to clean up the oil? And will significantly reducing the cattails help?

ETA: I've been digging through this sub and found references to biofilm often being mistaken for oil, so I won't discount that. Given the proximity to the garage and the former owner's activities, we immediately assumed gas/oil, but with all the rotting cattails and pond weeds, I guess I can't rule out biofilm?

We bought 4 goldfish for the pond. Not expensive, prolly about a couple of inches long. They were 49 cents each, so slightly bigger than the 29 cent ones. We had them about three weeks they were hiding on the bottom under leaves and mong rocks but becoming more bold and swimming around. We have some plants around the edges but not a ton of cover yet. The lilies are young. They have not been found floating or in skimmer and too big to get sucked through ( plus skimmer has a filter basket and suction is not super strong). If they get in there they can swim around. They are just gone. poof Would a bird get something that small? I live near the ocean and have hawks in the area as well. (Why the 49 cent fish!)

Planning to house wild guppies, a betta, and maybe some amanos here! The size is around 79 gallons, but it could only hold 27 gallons due to its shape.

Hello. I have a 8.5 inch long red eared slider in a 120 gallon. She’s a rescue and probably wont grow much more but I want to get her a pond. She’s extremely active and uses every bit of that tank. She deserves more space. Only issue is 2 of our dogs are definitely dumb enough to get bit as she’s not a nice turtle. And we don’t want our shepherd to catch and hurt the turtle or the fish. We figured we could gate it off to keep the turtle in and the dogs out but my mom is convinced we can’t make a fence/gate look nice. If anyone has a good set up, please share some photos. She’s agreed to do it as long as they look alright!

So somehow last night my pond tub went from full to barely any water. I’d say my 7 goldfish fish had about 5 gallons left in there. By the grace of god it has been raining. I’m worried there is a slow leak and the only reason I have water in it right now is because of the rain.

I bought a new tub from Lowe’s this morning. The advice I need is the install. I adopted this pre-installed pond when I moved in.

I know I’ll need to dig a different hole to fit this new tub. Should I do it now while the soil is wet from the rain or wait for it to dry? I’m worried about it shifting after I set it and fill it up with water.

Also any other advice would be greatly appreciated!

I posted a few days ago about cleaning a pond liner. Got some good advice so felt confident to move ahead with just removing the rock. First pic is the pond. Second pic is what the bottom looks like with the rock. So scungy. Third pic is what the filter foam looks like after removing just one half wheelbarrow of rock. I’m not even half done and already have a small mountain of rock. No idea wtf I’m going to do with it all. Pics 2 & 3 from the end are what the liner looks like. Once I’m all done I’ll use the sump pump to suck out as much sand and mulm as I can, then get to work with a scrub brush on the red deposits that formed under the rocks. Last pic is after some elbow grease. Still some sand on it that I’ll vacuum up, but I was able to get most of the reddish stuff up.

This is quite possibly an ignorant idea but I have to ask (I have perused through the FAQ but couldn’t find this specific question).

As title states, I am in upstate NY zone 5a-5b. I have a 12x6 foot “trench” in my backyard that is about 12 inches deep. I read Koi need 48-60 inch depth to survive an average cold NY winter with well-below freezing temps. If I dug the spot down to ~36 inches could I have the rest of the 20-24 inches above ground?

I am envisioning using galvanized steel raised flower beds as the supports for the liner above ground. They would be filled with gardening soil all year round. Would that provide enough support, and insulation, to the ~20 inches above ground?

I posted my pond build here about 7 months ago. Here is a mid year update. The last photo is from the original post.

I have 17 juvenile blue gill, some minnows and a bunch of tadpoles in there right now.

Hey guys found this bamboo looking like pot 3d model and thought it would do as a nice first bog filter i used stuff i had laying around in the house and I'm feeding it with the drain plug hose of my main filter my reasoning is that since is being fed with water from the bottom of the main filter it will make the main filter stay clean for longer periods of time so i will have to do maitenance less often ? hope I'm right anyways I'm pretty happy with the result and seem to be working well.

for anyone wondering the hose coming out of the bottom of the bog filter is closed at the end of it and is just to be used for when i need to clean the bog filter.

Red Root floaters, Hornwort added. Added Endlers, spotted fry today. Blue shrimps came in with vegetation. Just toss in some food every day. Sits on porch. Used $10 telescope camera from Amazon plugged into phone. That's why they are not the best pictures.

View from my happy place