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Jan 10th, 2023
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Joined: Jan 2009
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Danny, why don't you go ahead and make a brand new thread of your own so it gets more exposure. More people will see it and you can get more advice.
What I can say is, give us goals for your pond so we can taylor the advice. Do you plan to feed, aerate, etc? How deep is it?
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Nope, I'm just keeping the tank clean, I'm running fresh water through it evenings only, and then doing a 60-70% water change out at least once a week to get rid of the suspended solids. I did drain it dry last weekend and wiped it down good. I set this up on short notice so I haven't got to the filtration part yet. I do have "mechanical filters" that I have modified and attached to the the bottom of the pick up tubes for the power heads. I have to clean them out every couple of days but I put those on more to keep fish from getting sucked up into the powerheads. Normally the pick up tube is attached to an under gravel filter system in and aquarium so I had put something on the ends to keep the fish out of tubes. Just remember, I'm a newbie at this. I'm thinking cage raised fish off a dock would be a whole lot less work but need to build a dock first, it's on the list. You're fine; we all had to start somewhere, and I'm sure still learning. Actually having the responsibility of keeping fish alive is a big motivation and the best teacher. Sounds like you're coming along. Apparently you don't have a very high density of fish as I'd be concerned about a build up of ammonia and nitrites even with your weekly water change. It could suddenly catch up with you as your fish get larger. Are you monitoring ammonia and nitrites? Technically your system is not an RAS without both bio and mechanical filtration and more reuse of the water, but it sounds like you're doing something right. Cages are less work, but brushing off algae once a week can be a pain if you have to deal with it.
Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 04/22/12 05:36 PM.
If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.
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Joined: Jul 2005
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Lunker
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I do have a low density of smaller fish, as they get bigger and the water gets warmer it will be more of an issue and I will need to set up a filtration system or flow more through it more frequently. I am flushing 40-50 gallons a night through the system real slowly but the water is turned off most of the time. I peridocally check the nitrate levels with aquarium tests strips and so far it has always tested safe even right up to my weekly water change out. I am also removing any uneaten food and cleaning up the fish poop at least twice a day or more. One thing cool about the tank is that all of the poop and uneaten pellets that sink all settle in a 16" diameter circle in the center. It is real easy to siphon out into a 5 gallon bucket and then water my apple trees with it.
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Joined: Feb 2012
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THE LONELIEST BAYOU IN THE WORLD... BAYOUSELF !
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Joined: Jul 2005
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Don't be.
I went with a low density stocking strategy in order to keep trash fish out my pond. I will say don't buy a lot minnows as there is likely to be some undesirables mixed in with them. I made that mistake and probably have some bullheads now. You could stock a few dozen fathead minnows now just to keep the mosquito larvae down. This would give you the opportunity to make sure they are all indeed fatheads. They will reproduce like mad over the summer and by the time you are ready to stock some game fish there will be a forage base established for your fingelring fish.
What do you want to put into your pond?
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Joined: Jul 2005
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The last of my unkowns, RES or BG? I'm thinking RES, this one is a very picky eater.   (Cecil, I added a bio-filter to my tank two weeks ago.)
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I'm leaning towards RES too, but it's got a pretty chunky belly for being a picky eater.
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The only thing I could find that he would eat were frozen bloodworms. He refused to eat very small sliced up pieces of earthworms, he refused to eat soaked and sliced up pellets, and even refused to eat flake fish food. Would a BG do that? Even with the bloodworms he would stare at them before he sucked it in, then he would spit it out at least once before deciding to eat it. After finally eating that first bloodworm he would slowly go to town on the rest of them in the tank, always staring at it first before eating. This happened every time I fed him bloodworms. It's one of the reasons I am pretty sure he is a RES.  His body conditions looks a whole lot better than it did 5 weeks ago.
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