Good morning all. We purchased a home last year that had a small garden pond already installed. It wasn't in great shape, and my wife told me that I had a year to get it up and running, or she wanted to fill it in. I'll have to admit, this thing has put me through the ringer. I've fought leaks in an old vinyl liner, tried patches, replaced the water pump hose, etc. etc. Finally, we just went for broke, and pulled all the rocks out, and relined with a 45Mil EPDM liner. I can proudly, and exhaustedly, say that I am FINALLY holding my water level. I'm excited to see where we can go with this now, and hope to have a healthy pond that can handle a few small fish, and some aquatic plants. To start, I've added some water lettuce and hyacinth, and would like to add a few feeder goldfish to get things going.
The pond is approximately 4'x4', with a max depth of just under 2 feet, so approximately 200 gallons or so. I have a Totalpond DD11560 pump, pushing 210GPH through my water fall. Decholorinator has been used on the water according to instructions.
I do have a couple of questions after lurking for a few days:
FILTERS: I see lots of talk about filtering, but I don't have anything installed at this time. I thought I might start with a simply DIY system using quilt batting, but there isn't any build up of any sort yet on the pond. Do I need a different strategy here?
TESTING: What sort of testing should I be doing on my water at this point, and what brand of test is recommended?
FISH: Am I safe to add a few small feeder goldfish to work on building up the ecology of the pond, or should I wait longer?
Thanks in advance for the help.
The pond is approximately 4'x4', with a max depth of just under 2 feet, so approximately 200 gallons or so. I have a Totalpond DD11560 pump, pushing 210GPH through my water fall. Decholorinator has been used on the water according to instructions.
I do have a couple of questions after lurking for a few days:
FILTERS: I see lots of talk about filtering, but I don't have anything installed at this time. I thought I might start with a simply DIY system using quilt batting, but there isn't any build up of any sort yet on the pond. Do I need a different strategy here?
TESTING: What sort of testing should I be doing on my water at this point, and what brand of test is recommended?
FISH: Am I safe to add a few small feeder goldfish to work on building up the ecology of the pond, or should I wait longer?
Thanks in advance for the help.
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