'natural' Pond

[Kaush]

I have a 3 foot long by 2 foot deep and 2 and a half foot wide pond, one of those pre-formed ones. I made it last august and I put in two small lemon goldfish, two sarasa, one golden orfe, four small shubunkin two small ghost carp as well. The pond does not have any filter, but it does have some oxygenating plants in it. Because I did it so late in the summer I decided to move the fish inside, but I am thinking about moving them back at the end of march or so. When I put them in last summer the water got green after a while and so I put in this organic powder which was meant to make the water clear but it did not really work. Is there any way to make this pond stay clean, because I don't think I can get electricity outside.

 

[chr15_8]

firstly they pond is well overstocked.

at a max i would only put in a couple of goldfish. the orfe should each see well over 15 inch i would of thought. the carp would see well over 15 inch as well.

yes you could put a couple of the smaller goldfish in. if you put to many in at once it will over load the pond. probably best to do it one by one (like i said before would only put 2-3 pf the smaller type of goldfish in) and only put one in every week to let the water parameters settle.

green water would be hard to deal with without any filter. only thing you could try is a klay. im use kusuri klay in the summer. or you could try a water lily as the leaves will cover alot of the pond reducing the light on the pond.

but please re home all the fish except a few of the smaller type of goldfish. i wouldn't dream of putting that many fish in that size pond even with the filters for my koi pond. you will cause serious harm to the fish if you leave it much longer. you would also be better getting some sort of filtration on the pond

 

[FiSh123FiSh]

Chr15_8 is right the pond is well over stocked. natural ponds are not very great at filtering lots of fish waste, if its natural then there is a mix of wildlife such as: underwater insects, frogs, flys, larvae, and loads of other tiny things. The fish will eat all of this and so your left with in therory a koi pond with out filtration. I would suggest cutting you stock right down to 2-3 gold fish. The carp can grow to the width of your pond so they have to go for definate and the orfe need a lot of swimming space.

I have a 850 gallon pond which has 4 koi, 2 tench and a rudd, loads of minows and stickle backs. I also run a very large filter with UV light. This is IMO a semi-natural pond. (I went with naturals then got bored )

One solution to keeping it natural is to build up a boundary of plants which the fish can't cross. So you have got a place for frogspawn and tadpoles .

Sorry for the lecture,

Hope it goes well.

Tom.

 

[Davo86]

I have a 3 foot long by 2 foot deep and 2 and a half foot wide pond, one of those pre-formed ones. I made it last august and I put in two small lemon goldfish, two sarasa, one golden orfe, four small shubunkin two small ghost carp as well. The pond does not have any filter, but it does have some oxygenating plants in it. Because I did it so late in the summer I decided to move the fish inside, but I am thinking about moving them back at the end of march or so. When I put them in last summer the water got green after a while and so I put in this organic powder which was meant to make the water clear but it did not really work. Is there any way to make this pond stay clean, because I don't think I can get electricity outside.

Also your never going to prevent green water in summertime in a newly formed pond, Its simply something you have to live with until the pond is mature enough to balance itself out.

No treatment will be particularly effective unless you have a strong current mixing it around the whole pond, Although with no surface cover on the pond the greenwater can quickly return within 6-8 weeks

 

[fifefish]

have you tried some barley straw in a net?
that seems to work for my pond..

 

[FiSh123FiSh]

I havent but never really needed to becuase I have a UV light.

My local pond uses it though, seems to work.
Maybe try that for your natural pond