Hi everyone,
This will be my first post. I just constructed my first pond a few weeks ago. I specialize in aquarium plants and I have a few aquariums with a wide variety of aquatic plants.
The pond is small and while I wish it could have been bigger, we used up all the available space we could. We have multiple bee hives, a vineyard, a swimming pool, every veggie you could think of, and 18 fruit trees. Needless to say, our space was very limited.
The pond is 4 foot wide by 6 foot long and 2.5 feet deep at approximately 450 gallons. To keep predators out, we dug 1.5 feet with an elevated wall of just over 1.5 feet making the vertical wall about 3 feet. There is a cement base with pond liner.
We have a 1300 gph pump going to a pressure filter w/ a uv light which leads to a waterfall with a 8" spillway. I know many of you are against pressure filters but I was completely unaware of the many DIY filters out there so it will suffice for now.
I filled the filter with established filter media and about 50 gallons of water from my multiple tanks went straight to the pond.
I apologize for all the boring background info but I figured it would help a bit. Before I added fish, I added liquid ammonia to the pond to let the beneficial bacteria from my aquariums go to work. (The same method I use to cycle new aquariums). It was at 2ppm when I added the ammonia and by the next day, it was gone. I added more ammonia and got the same results.
I then proceeded to add 3 calico shubunkin goldfish and no ammonia, added 3 more a week later an no ammonia. I added one more blue/white looking shubunkin and still no ammonia or nitrites but I was at 30ppm nitrates so the pond was very well cycled.
As the thread states, how many more shubunkins can I safely add? I have 7 so far and was thinking about adding 1 or 2 more. The current fish sizes range from 3" to 6". I have water hyacinth, water poppy, and two waterlillies just growing their first leaves.
I plan on adding more plants.
Sorry for the essay and thank you in advance!!!!
This will be my first post. I just constructed my first pond a few weeks ago. I specialize in aquarium plants and I have a few aquariums with a wide variety of aquatic plants.
The pond is small and while I wish it could have been bigger, we used up all the available space we could. We have multiple bee hives, a vineyard, a swimming pool, every veggie you could think of, and 18 fruit trees. Needless to say, our space was very limited.
The pond is 4 foot wide by 6 foot long and 2.5 feet deep at approximately 450 gallons. To keep predators out, we dug 1.5 feet with an elevated wall of just over 1.5 feet making the vertical wall about 3 feet. There is a cement base with pond liner.
We have a 1300 gph pump going to a pressure filter w/ a uv light which leads to a waterfall with a 8" spillway. I know many of you are against pressure filters but I was completely unaware of the many DIY filters out there so it will suffice for now.
I filled the filter with established filter media and about 50 gallons of water from my multiple tanks went straight to the pond.
I apologize for all the boring background info but I figured it would help a bit. Before I added fish, I added liquid ammonia to the pond to let the beneficial bacteria from my aquariums go to work. (The same method I use to cycle new aquariums). It was at 2ppm when I added the ammonia and by the next day, it was gone. I added more ammonia and got the same results.
I then proceeded to add 3 calico shubunkin goldfish and no ammonia, added 3 more a week later an no ammonia. I added one more blue/white looking shubunkin and still no ammonia or nitrites but I was at 30ppm nitrates so the pond was very well cycled.
As the thread states, how many more shubunkins can I safely add? I have 7 so far and was thinking about adding 1 or 2 more. The current fish sizes range from 3" to 6". I have water hyacinth, water poppy, and two waterlillies just growing their first leaves.
I plan on adding more plants.
Sorry for the essay and thank you in advance!!!!
