Tropical fish pond

[Brewski]

, new too the community and pretty new too keeping fish and hoping can share some of your knowledge
I live in Thailand and have a large outdoor pond, main area is roughly 4m x 3m x 1m, heavily planted with a waterfall system and two smaller ponds.
In there currently are about 15 angels, 30 African cichlids, mollys & platys, archerfish, tetras and a couple of pleco.
In a pond of this size what sort of numbers of fish could I go upto in there? And other fish that would be easy/compatible. Currently I don't have a filter, the water is crystal clear to the bottom and fish generally seem to do well in there.

Also what sort of fish would be good for eating string algae?

Any advice be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[emeraldking]

Welcome aboard...
Curious for some photos of that pond of yours. That's already a nice stocking you've got. Maybe some rainbows or congo tetras would be a nice addition.

 

[Colin_T]

What sort of African cichlids do you have?

What is the GH (general hardness), KH (carbonate hardness) and pH of your water supply?
This information can usually be obtained from your water supply company's website (Water Analysis Report) or by telephoning them. If they can't help you, take a glass full of tap water to the local pet shop and get them to test it for you. Write the results down (in numbers) when they do the tests. And ask them what the results are in (eg: ppm, dGH, or something else).

Depending on what the GH of your water is, will determine what fish you should keep.

Angelfish, discus, most tetras, most barbs, Bettas, gouramis, rasbora, Corydoras and small species of suckermouth catfish all occur in soft water (GH below 150ppm) and a pH below 7.0.

Livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), rainbowfish and goldfish occur in medium hard water with a GH around 200-250ppm and a pH above 7.0.

If you have very hard water (GH above 300ppm) then look at African Rift Lake cichlids, or use distilled or reverse osmosis water to reduce the GH and keep fishes from softer water.

 

[Brewski]

Thanks for the reply guys, appreciated

Can definitely get some pics up, I'm mid renovation of the smaller ponds at the moment. Due to plant growth it raised the water level and started a leak somewhere.

I'll definitely try to find out the information on the water and then can determine what would work well. It's fascinating watching the politics in there amongst the fish. Due to the size of the pond do find that need a large number of a type of fish to have an impact. A large school of Congo tetras would be cool

Once the other areas are completed would like some fish that would let get on with the others in the big pond.