Anyone else have a goldfish pond in the backyard?

I always buy some cheap feeder goldfish and they usually get pretty big. Mine were over a year old. The algae was so bad I couldn't see them anymore. They seemed happy, but in the past I had a batch die cause the oxygen depleted when it got so bad (algae choked them out, was in their gills and eyes) in the middle of summer.

I decided a cleaning would be in order before summer got here.

Sunday I spent 2 hours down there scrubbing and changing the water out. I put the conditioner in and let it sit an hour. Bottle did not mention time to let it sit...we always did an hour with the fish in the bowl.

Well now 2 days later my 4"-6" gold fish are dead. I was reading that changing out the water is a bad idea...getting rid of the bacteria and such. I had tried algae killers, barley straw bags, but nothing could stop the algae. So I thought starting over would be the answer. Nope!

https://www.thespruce.com/can-massive-water-changes-kill-fish-1381885

I'm sure Ammonia levels were high...bubbles started to form on top.

Seems this always happens each batch I buy over the year....they get big, then something screws up and I loose all of them in 24 hours. Frustrating even though it's like a $1 worth of fish to start with.

Do some research on the nitrogen cycle and using plants for bio-filtration . Mechanical filtration gets the solids out and helps convert ammonia to nitrite to nitrate but it doesn't take the nitrates (algae food) out .

I'm pretty sure your goldfish died from the shock of being put in "clean" water . Do smaller water changes on a regular basis . I dip a five gallon bucket every day and use the water on my plants . Every month I'll drain a couple hundred gallons (1900 gallon pond) into the surrounding flower beds .

Don't over-feed . Carp always look hungry . The more you feed , the more they poop .

I don't trust all the additives . Some can deplete the oxygen levels in the pond to dangerous levels . My pond "turned over" after using a certain product and I lost an entire school of koi .

Get some test strips for ammonia/nitrite/nitrate .

Add a plecostomus or two to your pond. Great algae eaters. But they die during winter.

I've got 150 gallon deal.

Has 4 big goldfish and 4 bullhead that I scooped up from a local pond when they were so small I could not tell what they were. They're about five inches now two years later.

Regular small water changes is the key. My little tank is pretty algae filled right now I'm struggling to keep up with it but it does not bother the fish.

And you have to keep the water moving do you have a fountain or waterfall hooked up to a pump with a filter?

How big is your pond?

I use lily pads and elephant ears as my filtration. The lily pads cut down on the sun light and the elephant ears devour the nitrates.

Simple pump from Harbor Freight.....with waterfall. No filters.

Pond is maybe 50 gallons? It was the kit from Lowes'

I used to have lily pads in there, but they died off few winters back. It had gotten so big....root wad was like 20 lbs.

I bet so.....after reading that article it made sense. Got them stressed and they produced ammonia (be my guess).

You definitely have to cull the plants during the warm season- otherwise they will overtake the pond. Each fall I will remove about 80% of the lily pad root. Elephant ears have to be trimmed at least twice a month all summer.

For tropical fish in an aquarium, the worst thing you can do is a large change out with tap water. The chlorine levels from the tap will kill everything in your tank. There are two ways you can avoid this.

1) Only change out about 10% of the total volume at a time.
2) Fill a bucket and let it sit for about 12-24 hours to allow chlorine to evaporate.

Also, you will need a pump of some sort to remove water occasionally. Goldfish poop a lot, and make the water very messy. You'd have to have an awful lot of plants to deal with that amount build up. Once a week, you should siphon some out and water your plants with it. Then refill with water that you have had sitting out.

What do you plant the ears in?

Sounds like you might have the same kit I got have BBT.

If yours is peanut shaped it might be the 50 gal. But most likely its same as mine and those are 150 gal.

For sure you need a filter not just a pump. Check Amazon. I will post a pic of mine when I get home. I want to add a waterfall to mine. Tried plants last year (bamboo and some floating plant I ordered online) they did so-so but died when it got cold. Never really took off Like I wanted them too.

You may also want to add a uv light to the circulation system. Supposed to cut down on algae growth

http://www.skippysstuff.com/aditvs.htm

Check this guys site out. Great advice

I planted an elephant ear in pea gravel . It sat outside the pond (so it wasn't completely submerged) with water circulating through it into a waterfall . The leaves were ~5' long and the bulb was the size of a soccer ball by the end of summer .

Water celery is excellent for exporting nitrates but you have to keep it trimmed . Water hyacinth , Salvinia and Water Lettuce are even better but they're illegal to possess in Texas .

UV works well at killing algae and parasites . The only problem is that the dying algae rots and adds more pollution to the water .

Fish poop / urea ( and anything else rotting) breaks down to Ammonia . By scrubbing the pond down , you probably killed all the bacteria responsible for converting ammonia to nitrite/nitrate . It's a slow process . Try keeping a few pots full of gravel in the pond . When you decide to clean it out , put them in a bucket of aerated pond water .

When the pond is clean and the water is de-chlorinated put them back in . This will re-establish your bio-filtration .

I'm thinking this was the cause. So keep gravel in the pond and use it as the "activator" to get good bacteria in there again? Am I understanding that correct?

Should I only change a certain percentage of the water?

It was so green, I couldn't see 2" into the water.

I have two "ponds". The upper pond contains six red ear turtles from 6" - 10". If anyone has ever cared for turtles, you know the mess they are in an aquarium. The lower pond contains my goldfish/ minnows, etc. Between the two I have a "bog" or about a 100 gallon container that I only keep plants in. Essentially, it is a 100 gallon elephant ear root ball. There are mesh baskets in there but I just let them over grow it. I pump water from the lower pond to the upper pond and have two overflows- one into the bog from the upper pond and then the bog to the lower pond. (I use a 600 gph pump which is about 60 watts I think). I grow lily pads in the lower pond for shade. The upper pond is partially shaded and the turtles will just eat any plants- so nothing in there.

Maintenance involves trimming the bog regularly in the growing season and topping off with water. You shouldn't ever need to do water changes outside if this is done correctly. The waste and plant life should balance out each other. In the winter when the plants are dormant, I feed very little.

Man, I'd love to see some of ya'lls pond pics!!

Mine is rather small, but I will dig up a pic or 2.

Too many nutrients (nitrates) + sun = green water .

The bacteria that convert the fish poo (ammonia) to nitrate live on all surfaces (pond liner / gravel / plants /pumps /etc.). When you scrub down a pond or aquarium you're pretty much killing all the beneficial bacteria and starting from scratch .

I don't recommend "sterilizing" or using algaecides on a tank or pond . It's not necessary . Get some test strips from any local store like Walmart . Start out slowly . Ammonia means the cycle has started . Nitrite (extremely harmful-increase aeration) are the second step . Nitrates (plant food)are the final product .

When the ammonia/nitrite levels are high , cut down on feeding until you see nitrates . Keep an eye on the nitrate level . When it reaches ~ 50 ppm , start regular water changes of around 10% .

If nitrates keep going up , increase the amount of water you change or cut back on feeding / number of fish .

*Addendum* Always wanted to use that .

I keep several aquariums running . I take the gravel from one to start up a new tank so the bacteria are there to eat ammonia when I get new fish .

Oh I scrubbed it alright. Bathroom brush (new one) and power sprayer. I thought I needed to get rid of that or the green algae would come right back. That teaches me for thinking! DOH!

That sounds kick a$$ .
No probs with the turtles wandering to the other pond ? My bio-filter is a 100 gallon feed trough from Tractor Supply planted with Louisiana Iris . Didn't do a bog since the pump runs about 3000 gallons/hour .

I inserted a toilet flange in the side , slipped some liner over the flange and built a waterfall with flagstone . Works for me .

MY pond

The red ear are contained by a short wall around the pond- there is a basking area in the middle for them climb onto. This basking area is essential for long term care. My two oldest turtles are approaching 40 years now.

My turtle pond overflow is a shower drain w/screen mounted in the pond wall that drains into the bog via a PVC pipe. The bog container just overlaps the edge of the lower goldfish pond forming a small water fall.

I'm also a firm believer in having the "water fall" action within each container as it is the best no maintenance aeration mechanism and provides a small water current for circulation.

Get this....so I goofed and scrubbed the whole liner, pump, cut plants back (mainly fig ivy roots), and cleaned the hose. Fish died 3 days later.

Fast forward.....the water is green again. No plants, but there are tadpoles starting to show up. (Keep reading below for random thoughts.)

Is that crazy?


Okay here is a little thing I thought back too.....
I have dealt with fish kills like this every couple years. Fish get big and something happens. Well, the night all my fish died....3 pairs of toads had their pleasure night in the pond. I found them "hung over" looking confused the next morning. Pond was full of dead fish and the slimey string like frog eggs had been laid.

I remember years ago I had a fish kill the same night the frogs did the "dirty dance". Is there a correlation?

That is awesome. Love the deck to the waters edge.

I guess it's possible the love making created some sort of "bloom" which caused a spike in ammonia / nitrites. I would think for that to happen it would require a small pond volume and filtration that was just capable of sustaining only the fish.

I don't believe the tadpoles will be impacted much by the current water quality- however they do have gills before developing lungs so I guess it can't be completely ruled out.

As for the green water, if the surface catches full sun, I'd consider maybe some kind of temporary partial cover to eliminate light and some lily pads to compete with the algae for the available food- if you don't provide some kind of plants to remove the nitrates, mother nature will (algae).

Many a frogs are born in a tire's muddy tire tracks. They pump sucking them up might do more harm.

Odd thing...the outside cats won't touch the toads...but any other water frog is dead meat. (It ticks me off too...I liked the loud froggy nights!)

Pond is small....and full sun (well compared the rest of the yard).

I guess that was bad placement on my part. I will add some more lily pads from the pet store and see if that helps. Thanks again!

Trent, I am about to finish my water feature. It is 2 biofalls filters set about 5 ft. high as the starting point. They have 3 large drops into a top bog which will flow into a 35 foot creek down to the bottom pond. I fabricated a pump housing to contain my two pumps (each one feeds it's own biofalls filter via 2 inch pc pipe and each pump is rated at 5100 gph at 0 head.) I'll post pics tomorrow of where I am with it currently and then again when I am done. It should be pretty epic.

The bumps behind a toad's eyes are poison glands . Most animals learn after their first experience .

I have got to see this!

Sorry for not posting pics yet, I am in the process of moving into a new office and have not been able to take any pics yet. I'll try to get some before dark today. I still have to acquire some more stone to complete it, but it is coming along pretty good. I also misquoted the length of the creek. I stated it was 35 feet long, but in actuality the creek itself is more like 20...still going to be a pretty impressive setup in my opinion (and I am a bit biased because I have done 100% of the work myself with hand tools only and changed the design about 7 times throughout the course of the build.)

Sweet, can't wait to see this.

It has undergone a few changes/fixes and I am trying to do all of this with a recently torn rotator cuff and a trashed elbow (oddly enough about a week after shoulder injury I go out and shoot an 84 in a match play tournament, taking out my opponent who shot a 74...hahaha)...so needless to say the pictures are delayed. I am going to try to get a lot done this weekend, maybe I'll be able to post pics of its current state (if I am satisfied enough with it to show yet) next week. It'll get done eventually as it has almost brought my marriage to an end...she's not too thrilled about the current size of the project compared to what was originally pitched to her.

That's a freakin' koi pond ? Dang ! You could raise sharks in there .

Koi? Not this guy...only native fish will go in my water...and those electric eel/crocodile hybrids if I can find that guy's number. LOL

Crawfish? Bream?

I can't wait to start my new one. How big of a pump did you use? Special kind?

I'll try some bluegill for sure, and where there's bluegill, there has to be a bass or two...
I have 2 pumps which are each rated at 5100 GPH at 0 head. They are housed in a custom made filter box which has thick filter media all the way around the inside. Each pump is connected to its own biofalls which has 2 additional layers of filter media, so the water is being double filtered and all that media will hold a lot of the beneficial bacteria.
I don't know if any native fish will survive a winter or really hot summer because the pond is only about waist deep.

Bream are found in the discharge at Power Plant lakes, over 100 degrees. They should be fine.

How much did you spend on pumps and such?

Did you use a liner for the pond area?

They should be fine . You might want to put some structure in the deeper parts so they can hide from summer sun . I kept a rainbow trout alive for several years .

Yeah, I just finished it (for the most part) on Friday. I am going to add some vegetation and probably a few other fun additions to it before a fish ever sees it. BBT - I lined the entire thing with Firestone PondGard 45 mil EPDM pond liner and used every bit of a 20' x 50' roll. Best price you'll find is from a place up here about 45 minutes from my house in Shawnee, OK and is called Pond Pro Shop. Click on the name to check out their website. They have a lot of stuff. I gave $600 for the 20'x50' roll. As far as the pumps go, I picked these two up at Lowes. They are compact, have a good flow rate (5100 GPH at 0 head) with decent numbers when you start calculating the total head, come with a 5 year warranty, and only draw 210 watts each. I got them for like $259 each I think. If you decide to do a large feature build, definitely go with the flexible PVC instead of traditional rigid pipe. That is my biggest regret. The flexible is a lot pricier, but totally worth it in the grand scheme of things.

BBT - If you have an android or Skype, holler at me this evening and I'll walk and talk you through what all I did...right and wrong, while showing you via video feed. You should still have my number.

Yeh....My wife found an article several years ago on "How to build a Koi pond for under $15".....$8 grand later, here ya go ...We do love it though. Got some VERY large Koi in there now and the waterfall is soothing when sitting outside looking at Lake Vilbig.

Its 9X12 and almost 5ft deep in the very center. Lillys need cut back I see....

pacertom that is a pretty sweet waterfall/pond you got going on.

FYI : those 5100 gph pumps are on clearance at Lowe's right now . $100 off .

For real? If they're only $150 each it would be worth it to pick up 2 more as "backups". I say "backups" when in reality I would probably branch off at least one more creek from the waterfall center and run it out through either the middle of the backyard and have it dump into the pond also OR just build another one in the front yard! (and subsequently either bear witness to the first and probably only time my wife would fire a weapon or not be so lucky and just get divorced)

Nice looking setup you have there pacertom.