I Have No Idea What I'm Doing!!!

[Zrz11386]

Sorry for the dramatic title, but I had to get your attention.

First off, I'd like to introduce myself. My wife and I just bought a house in Baltimore, MD. The house came with a pond in the backyard that is about 4'x4'x10''. It has a small waterfall with a couple of goldfish in it (4-5 from what I've seen), some snails, a couple of frogs that weren't put there intentionally, as well as some water lillies. Here's the thing, I have no idea what I'm doing. I asked the previous owners to leave us some info on the fish and pond (how to take care of it, how to treat the water, feeding schedule for the fish, etc.) All they left was some food, a spare filter, and a bunch of chemicals I'm not sure how or when to use.

So I'm just attempting to keep this thing going with no previous experience or background on it. In general I'm looking for any advice you guys can give me, from feeding schedules, what I should be doing to the water, plants/animals I should keep out of there, etc.

Animals:
--Couple of goldfish from what I was told, 4-5 from what I have seen so far.
--Multiple frogs, most I've seen is 4 adult frogs at one time. Previous owner said she did not put the frogs in, they just showed up. Also have seen at least one tadpole and a tiny frog recently.
-Snails, a bunch from what I've seen so far.
-- Black snakes tend to lurk around, lots of spiders around our property and lots of regular black ants.

Plants:
-- Ill try to attach pictures of the plants to this thread below, but there are floating water lillies that continue to multiply and I thin out when they start to overrun the pond, and 2 potted plants below the water surface.
-- Various plants around the pond.

Supplies left by previous owners:

-- PondCare Master Liquid Test Kit
-- PondCare Melafix
-- PondCare Algaefix
-- PondCare pH Down
-- Clear Pond Crystal Lagoon
-- PondCare AccuClear
-- MicrobeLift Spring/Summer Cleaner
-- MicrobeLift PL
-- PondCare Herbal Aphid Control
-- Pondmaster 1000/2000 Series Filter Replacements
-- PondCare Spring & Autumn Premium Pellet
-- PondCare Summer Staple Premium Pellet
-- Plantabbs Pondtabbs
-- TetraFin Goldfish flakes
-- PondCare Pond Salt

Please give me an advice you can!! I'm a beginner!! All advice is good advice at this point. If anyone is familiar with the Baltimore area suggest some places I could go that may help me out. What do I do in the winter time to protect the fish?

I have not changed any water since Ive been in the house and the filter seems to clog up and stop the waterfall each week. I rinse it out and it takes right back off running. I did a pH test when we first moved in and the pH was good, I will do another one as well as a salt and ammonia test tomorrow. I have not added any chemicals since I've been the owner. I feed the fish the pellets every other day per the previous owners instructions.The fish hide at the bottom under cover almost all of the time, I rarely see them. I'll take the temperature of the water tomorrow, however the ambient temperature here has been in the 90's for weeks although we have had an unusual amount of rain the past couple weeks.

Thanks in advance!! I look forward to learning from all of you and hopefully staying here a long time!!

(I'm going to attempt to upload pictures now, if its blank below here, sorry.)

 

[Zrz11386]

No clue why the first two pics were large, and the rest were thumbnails. Sorry.

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Welcome!
First rule of thumb in pond ownership...'If it ain't broke, don't fix it'. If the test kit is not out of date, run a full series of tests to establish a 'baseline' for future referral. Post the results here on this forum. We can help you interpret them.With the exception of the test kit and the food, leave everything else on the shelf.
Try to determine how much (depth) sediment you may have at the bottom of the pond without stirring things up
Enjoy your new pond!!!

 

[Dave 54]

Next thing I would like to suggest is buy a few books on the subject in that you are lucky as we have an extensive library of books you can choose from but the best I think for you as beginers would be to buy the following Amazon would be your best bet to get them soonest .

Hand Book of Fish Diseases (All Fish) ISBN 0866227032. Dieter Untergasser.

As well as this book

The Manual of Fish Health ISBN 0861013869. Dr Chris Andrews Adrian Exell, Dr Neville Carrington

Both will put you on a good footing to understand our wonderful hobby interestingly the last book is the one we started out with as novices 28 years ago .
From what I can see though the previous owners left you well supplied keep the feed down as they have suggested.
Above all read all the instructions when using any of the stuff they left you and try to keep salt out of the pond as it can interfier with any treatments in th future .
Dont be affraid to ask questions no matter how silly you think they are because weve all been there .

Dave

 

[Dave 54]

Much of what has been left for you is self explanitory and I must say I'm impressed by the stuff they had , I use Microbe_lift and my koi used to eat Pondcare pelleted food until my local shop stoppe stocking it and started with Tetra foods .
Now I order my food from online seeing as I dont rate tetra food .

Dave

 

[addy1]

No clue why the first two pics were large, and the rest were thumbnails. Sorry.

When you post pictures, up load them then click full size, all will be full size which makes it easy to see them.

Welcome to our group!

Any clue on the size of the pond? the hyacinth (the floating plants) will die with winter, they are tropical plants. They do multiply this time of year and will take over.
Lilies are potted below the water. They are the flat floating leaves .
The frogs will always be there, don't worry about them.

The few fish may be hiding, they might have been predator scared i.e. heron etc and they go into hiding mode.
Don't add more fish, the pond does not look that big by your pictures.

Like Meyer says, do some water tests and post the results so we can help if your numbers are off.
As far as your filter clogging up you might want to, eventually, add a pre-filter, something we can help with.

I don't use any of the chemicals so can't help with them.

Be careful about adding salt , it is usually only added if you have a fish issue, too much will kill them and the plants.

 

[MitchM]

Welcome!
That red thing floating in the pond looks like a heater, you should take that out because it's only useful during the winter, if at all.

 

[Lisak1]

Cute little pond! It looks like the previous owners were big on being prepared for anything. If I had to hand my pond over to anyone it would be "here's the food... here's the net...there's the fish... have fun!" Hopefully they didn't actually need/use all that stuff.

Like everyone has already said, start slow. The fish may not be used to a lot of human interaction, so they may take a bit of time to get used to you. They may also be staying at the bottom where the water is a bit cooler since it's been so hot.

As for winter time, it does look like the pond has a floating heater/deicer in it right now which may indicate the owner left the fish in the pond all winter. 10" is rather shallow, but goldfish are pretty hardy little creatures. Is there any way you can talk to the former owner and ask some of these questions?

Don't worry about your plants - they look great!

Welcome to the GPF and congratulations - you're a pond owner!

 

[sissy]

welcome and yep testing water is number one on the list of things to do

 

[Lisak1]

Oh, and I meant to add - your title for this post is basically my motto for life!

 

[Nepen]

Hi and welcome!
Nice little pond you have. Is that a water fall? How is your filter work? I think the replacement pad is for a pre-filter (which underwater and connecting to a pump, is it?) Is that the only type of filter you have? if the filter clog often I'd think about building a new filter that can handle more load.

I think with small pond and heat, your water might be warm and if it's warm, I'd add an air pump to the pond. My pond is in full sun and the water got pretty warm, then my fish stay at the bottom, when I added an air pump, the fish start to come out more. warm water = less dissolve oxygen.

 

[Tula]

Welcome. You have a very pretty pond with both water lilies and water hyacinth

 

[Zrz11386]

Thanks for all of the responses guys!! I got in form work late tonight so I'm trying to answer any questions you guys have for more info now.
Also I think I've thought of some more questions:

How do I determine how much sediment is at the bottom of the pond?
Should I be changing out any of the water? The most I've done is add a little bit when it looked low.
Right now there seems to be some algae growing on the rock that the water runs over for the waterfall. I picked it off, but is there any better way to keep it out.

The size of the pond is about 48''x48''x10''. Which if I'm doing my math correctly equals about 120 gallons.

What I know about the filter so far - square case about 12''x12'', its a thicker meshy filter on top of a thinner more wiry filter. It hooks to a tube on one side. I believe it is the Pondmaster 1000 series filter, when I googled "Pondmaster 1000" it was the first image result.

There is a waterfall in the pond, dropping off of the larger rock on top. It's maybe a 6''-8'' fall into the water. As far as I see that's the only filter. To tell you the truth I'm not even sure where the motor is right now.

WATER TEST RESULTS:

As long as I did everything right, here are my results:
pH - 8.0
Ammonia - 0ppm
Nitrite - 0ppm
Nitrate - 0.00-0.02%

Thanks again for all of the help!!!

 

[sissy]

It would be a pump and would be in the pond someplace or in a skimmer .Is the pond preformed ,if it is the pump is more than likely in the pond .If you see the hose or the plug just follow those and you will find it .You don't want the pump to get plugged up by stuff in the pond and burn out ..Have you checked the filter to see how dirty it is .

 

[Zrz11386]

I check the filter normally once a week