Bought a house with a pond (no filtration, plants or otherwise)

[AnneHanssi]

Hey
my family recently bought a house in a mediterranean climate and with it came a (sort of) pond. It’s round, made of concrete, about 50 cm deep and maybe 1,50 m across. there’s more of those things in our area and i think they used to be some kind of water reservoir (before they had a stable source of water). in the pond are no (visible) plants except for algae, no filter or aeration and the water isn’t very clear. BUT!!! there’s about 23 goldfish in it, at least that’s the maximum amount i ever saw at once, and they probably were never fed, since the previous owners hadn’t visited the house in at least 2 years. today i also saw a pretty large frog

now i’m not sure what i should do, should i leave them be, since they survived on their own for a pretty long time. or should i help by maybe adding some sort of aeration and maybe some plants. i also started feeding the fish, not enough to make them dependent on me, but just so they get used to humans and don’t swim away as soon as a human comes. the fish all seem to appear pretty healthy with some of them growing larger than the span of my hand. should i stop intervening in their habitat by feeding them, or does anyone have any tips for me?

(i should add that i’m the only one who cares that much about the fish in my family, and since i only visit about every two months, asking my family to do anything other than feeding or spending any kind of large sums of money is out of the question)

Sorry for my long text, and also sorry if i made any spelling mistakes (english isn’t my first language)

THANK YOU!!! <3

 

[TheFishGuy]

Welcome! 23 goldfish is quite a few, I would try to rehome some of them ( at least half ) if that is a thing that is possible in your area. As far as feeding goes, you don't really want more goldfish, so feed sparsely and if you rehome some don't feed at all. I would personally add a few plants, and maybe a fountain. Any sort of water feature would require some amount of maintenance, so your family would have to be willing to clean the pump every now and then.

 

[Mmathis]

Hello and welcome! Please post some pictures to give us a better idea of what you’re dealing with.

At 50cm deep, that’s about 19 inches. Now, do you mean 150m wide or 1.5m wide? At 1.5m, that’s about 5 feet wide. That comes out to about 300 gallons. But if it’s 150m, that’s over 400 feet, and well, that’s a HUGE pond!

Anyway, aeration and plants can ALWAYS help! As far as feeding them, it sounds like there is enough algae that they don’t need supplemental feeding — if your pond is balanced at the moment, extra food is going to upset that balance.

Please post some pictures for us.

 

[AnneHanssi]

here’s a picture for you! and it’s about 1.5m (so about 5 feet) wide i think, though this could also be pretty inaccurate since i’m bad at guessing this sort of thing and couldn’ find any ruler or something.
but thanks for the advice that already came! )

Hello and welcome! Please post some pictures to give us a better idea of what you’re dealing with.

At 50cm deep, that’s about 19 inches. Now, do you mean 150m wide or 1.5m wide? At 1.5m, that’s about 5 feet wide. That comes out to about 300 gallons. But if it’s 150m, that’s over 400 feet, and well, that’s a HUGE pond!

Anyway, aeration and plants can ALWAYS help! As far as feeding them, it sounds like there is enough algae that they don’t need supplemental feeding — if your pond is balanced at the moment, extra food is going to upset that balance.

Please post some pictures for us.

 

[Criscar]

It sounds like it’s pretty similar in size to my little pond. I have mine filled with plants and use a small pump to run the water through a small planted bog. If you don’t want to deal with pumping and filtration at this point and just leave it more or less as a wildlife type pond then maybe at least adding some potted or floating plants might help with the algae a bit. Mine are sitting on PVC stands around the rim but you could get a dwarf lotus and a bit of hornwort or something like that and that would help a bit. Right now the fish are living off of the algae for some or most of their diet so you definitely don’t want to get rid of all the algae. And 23 goldfish is definitely too much since they all have the potential to get about .3 meters long.

 

[Arbuthnot]

My small (3ftx9ft) pond is doing well without filtration, so are the 8 goldfish. Water lilies grow profusely in the summer, rooted in the bottom muck. They provide shelter from the sun. I add floating plants, and a small tablet of anti-mosquito treatment, which doesn’t hurt the fish ( don’t feed the fish - their job is to keep the rest of the mosquito larvae down). The fish and plants are covered from November to march during our very cold winter. With sufficient plant material your pond will do well, find a balance, the water will clear and algae around the edge will feed the fish.

 

[addy1]

Welcome to our forum!

Goldfish survive fine without humans, eating the bugs, plants etc

 

[j.w]

@AnneHanssi