Happy Social Distancing

[Rasta10]

Hello All.

I live in Georgia and have always wanted to fish pond in the backyard. Since I now have some "extra time", I went out and purchased a preformed 125 g liner (just under 2ft deep). Needless to say, as soon as it was installed, I immediately wished I had gone bigger. Anyway, I'm trying to make the best of the mini pond and came across this website in my quest for information on filters/fish/non-fish-or dog-toxic landscaping. It also has a small waterfall for movement.

 

[addy1]

Welcome to our forum!

Get a liner and make it bigger, you will never regret it. Use your preform to make a plant pond, a mini bog etc.

 

[Stephen Noble]

Welcome Rasta 10. You are experiencing the 'infectious nature' of pond keeping! Let us know what you decide and there are many on this site who are happy to assist.

 

[j.w]

@Rasta10
You could do something like this w/a preformed pond or just google "preformed pond photos", to give you some good ideas:

 

[sissy]

You can always do something else later and make the preformed into a water feature with a bubbling rock and plants

 

[CometKeith]

Hello All.

I live in Georgia and have always wanted to fish pond in the backyard. Since I now have some "extra time", I went out and purchased a preformed 125 g liner (just under 2ft deep). Needless to say, as soon as it was installed, I immediately wished I had gone bigger. Anyway, I'm trying to make the best of the mini pond and came across this website in my quest for information on filters/fish/non-fish-or dog-toxic landscaping. It also has a small waterfall for movement.

Hi Rasta. You can start learning with a small pond and plan a fall or spring project with a larger pond when you have learned more and gained more experience. I bought a small pond kit in 2008-2009 after the housing market crashed and I found a lot of time on my hands too because I was a builder. My wife actually thought I lost my mind when she saw me digging up our yard! There is so much to know about fish and plants and how to establish a nitrogen cycle that you can research all about this as you plan for something larger. I went from 150 gallons to almost 3000 gallons in about 10 years! The key is to make the next one as large as you can so you will be happy for a while. Oh and put much less fish in any of your ponds than you think it can hold until you are sure the pond water is a healthy environment for them. PS. healthy water has nothing to do with what color it is. Good luck!

 

[sissy]

you will need a API water test kit to show what the water is doing .I took my preformed out and sorry I took it out as it would have made a nice place to store extra plants or start plants .

 

[Rasta10]

Thank you all so much for the welcome and great advice. I went to the aqua nursery yesterday and purchased a few plants and water conditioner. They will test the water to make sure that it's safe before I start adding fish (thinking 4-5 small goldfish, a handful of minnows and a plecos or two). In the meantime, I will finish up the landscaping and continue to let the pump go. I will post pictures when it's up and running.