Hi,

Has anyone tried using a pond rather than a tank? I saw a HUGE black plastic pond for sale in the hardware store, $100, about 1/4 of the price of a tank.

I intend to just fill it with water and set up a filter but nothing else. Put it in the centre of my garden and keep about half a dozen oscars in it.

My biggest concern is, during winter here, the outside temperature can drop to 15C, during the night and 20C during the day. Would multiple heaters help?

Also, any other potential problems you guys might enlighen me?

Hi Jade, I am not a fundi here, but from experience I know that Oscars need a LOT of space (± 240 litre per Oscar?) and your other concern would be your water quality. They need prestine clean water constantly - so a tank needs to get water changes from once to three times (depending on the health of your tank) at least per week - are you going to be able to do that in your garden? Just a few practical thoughts... I'm sure you will get lots of assistance here, welcome.

Its gonna cost you a fortune (and i mean a big fortune) to keep it heated. If you do it at least get a lid! Also by having it outdoors you expose yourself(or your fish) to outdoor problems, ie outdoor bugs and parasites and also outdoor predators like herons. I think you should think very carefully about this!!!!!



Also the problem with having your fish in a pond against a tank is you cant see them very well. In a pond you get to see the top of the fish whereas in a tank you get to see them side on. Obviously you can observe your fishes behaviour better when you can see them in a tank

hi all,

this pond is huge, can easily take 1000 litres, but I see your point about keeping it warm and cost. Like this morning, temperature dropped to 20C again.

I was thinking of covering the pond with a wire mesh to keep bird and frogs out. That would imped my view further, so bummer, have to give this idea away

Update guys,

My friend says he keeps South American fish in his pond and they are ok to live here without heating. yeah.... project is back on.

So what do I need to get?

1 pond for feeder fish
1 pond for the oscars
1 water testing kit
1 pump/filter of some sort.

I went to the shops on the weekend and canister filters are are like $200 ea. YIKES. I might just have a plastic puforated tray, filled with synthetic filter wool, use a water pump to draw water from the pond and push the water through this tray and let the water drop back into the pond.

In the shops, there was also a bottle of pond bateria to cycle the ammonia. Does the bateria live in the pond water or in the filter wool?

I am not using any sand or substract, hard to clean in a pond.

If it were my pond, I would add a substrate, preferabley sand(easier to clean, and very cheap). You could clean this using an under gravel filter- but I'm not so sure this would work sufficianlty in a pond, you'd have to do a little research. But, you should add some driftwood, a few rocks and some plants(optional). Plants will help filter the pond and aerate it. You might also want to add some tadpoles or a plecostomus because they are good at cleaning up algae. Common plecostomuses aren't really that good at eating algae once they beat eight inches though.

Are you putting any fish other than oscars in there?

You could keep feederfish in an aquarium or anything that holds water indoors. Even a horse through could work! This would save you the trouble of cleaning and maintaining a whole other pond.

In terms of a filter, you could use a pool or pond SKIMMER. A lot cheaper than canister filter, and, in my eyes, better.

Artemis