Hello from Australia

[Becky]

Welcome to the forum! :wave: Some of our good friends are about to move to Melbourne, I hear it's a lovely place. They are flying from California on Christmas Eve and they land on Boxing Day, so Christmas for them will be somewhere over the Pacific I guess!

 

[Catfishnut]

lmao does that help him read it!

Welcome to our group!

Of course it does Addy, Jase is on the "conupside tinent"... the continent down under and on the other side of the world from us so you have to write upsde down and from right to left. It's like looking into a mirror you know.

The "conupside tinet" was a computer error, not my personal typo. I thought I would leave it in place because it sounded funny.

Gordy

 

[HARO]

Welcome to the forum! :wave: Some of our good friends are about to move to Melbourne, I hear it's a lovely place. They are flying from California on Christmas Eve and they land on Boxing Day, so Christmas for them will be somewhere over the Pacific I guess!

Sorry to have to tell you this, Becky, but when your friends cross the date line they will go from Dec. 24 to Dec. 26, so there will be no christmas for them this year! :disappointed_anim:
BTW, welcome to the forum, Jase.
John

 

[Jase]

Thanks for the warm welcome folks!

If you can keep a 100 gallon pond with 10 fish in it looking good and keep the fish alive, you can surely take care of a bigger pond. Welcome to the group.

I had read that the water to fish ratio is approx 80 gallons to 1 fish? If thats the case I have too many fish. I keep the water clean with lots of plants and all the fish seem pretty happy and relaxed. even eating from my hand. Only one instance of 'Ich' but that was introduced by a new fish but managed to rid the pond of that with all fish accounted for.
I will be doing a lot of reading as there is so much to take in!

I Love my Goldies- Our summer has started here but it's still a bit cool for my liking. Pretty soon it will be scorching though.

If I can work out how to upload a photo I will put one up.

 

[Jase]

Becky, Yep Melbourne is a very liveable city. I kind of compare Melbourne to New York and Sydney to LA. Only problem I have which I suppose is kind of a first world problem is our state won't let us own Koi fish :-( so have to make do with Shubunkens.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Jase, when you want to upload a picture go to the bottom of the page and see "more reply options" and click in that. Then there should be a "choose file" or it sometimes shows up as "browse". That should take you to a window where you can pick a picture file from your computer. Once you have the picture, don't forget to "attach file". If you have problems use the "advanced uploader". Let me know how it goes!

 

[j.w]

Hey Jase you will learn lots here and you can call me jw...............I do love my goldies tho :biggrinangelA:
If you can keep the water really clean all the time then having a bit many fish right now will be ok till you can get the shovel out and start your new expansion. Wish I would have built a bigger pond cuz my fish are taking over :cheerful:

 

[Jase]

Well here is my humble pond. It has 9 goldfish of varying sizes with 3 of them at 5 inches. A small school of Danios. Or similar. not sure of their name, and a few snails.
In a real bright moment I excitedly buried the pond without looking at the sticker to see how much much water it holds but I guess around 300L.
So I have read that fish need 80g per fish? other people say its the inch of fish per water quantity. Going by that then my pond would only be good for one fish?? So looking at the pond would anybody say I have too many fish in there?
I keep the water clean and as far as you can tell with fish they look happy. Pretty active, not in the least shy, not agitated or sitting at the bottom depressed or anything.
My next move is to get a pump and filter set up and then to drop in a home made pond and cascade. So will have to do a bit of reading up on Pumps etc.
I used to consider myself an adrenaline head and lived life fast but now I can't wait to get home and hang with the fish :biggrin:

 

[addy1]

Very nice humble pond! Your water looks wonderful.
If you want more water room for the fish, take some of those or all of the rocks out of the pond. They tend to just collect muck. If you like the rock look put some small gravel in the bottom.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Beautiful Little Pond Jase!! Must be nice and warm there if you can put Danios in there!! The rocks look cobbled almost around the pond and that is a very nice touch! If the rocks inside get dirty and slimy, just take them out and sun dry there for a couple days and then put them back all cleaned. It is a nice small pond so I am sure it is easy to move those rocks if need be.

 

[sissy]

once you get a filter going with water noise in a waterfall or stream you will not be able to get away from all the relaxing you are going to be doing :cheerful:

 

[Catfishnut]

So I have read that fish need 80g per fish? other people say its the inch of fish per water quantity. Going by that then my pond would only be good for one fish?? So looking at the pond would anybody say I have too many fish in there? I keep the water clean and as far as you can tell with fish they look happy. Pretty active, not in the least shy, not agitated or sitting at the bottom depressed or anything.

Jase,

I am not certain about how many fish is too many for the size of a pond. But, if your fish seem to be thriving, then you are obviously OK at least for now. When they grow larger or increase in population you might become more concerned. You should test your water for ammonia and nitrite levels among other aspects to know for sure.

My interest is in a bait tank "pond" where I keep native fish that I use for catfish bait and not in keeping goldfish or Koi. The fish I keep in my pond (a poly tank of < 1,000 gallons) are very hardy and can handle stresses better than goldfish and especially Koi. My fish are not pets, but I do enjoy watching them in the tank and feeding them just the same. I usually don't feed them store-bought fish food. The way I have had my tank set up in the past, there was a light to attract bugs over it and the bugs would drop into the water or come close enough to the top for the fish to jump up out of the water and grab the bugs out of the air. Pretty fun to watch! Mostly, I fed them minnows that I seined or trapped from the river.

I have never tested my water in the past. I generally just keep an eye on the fish habits and actions. If they start gulping air from the top water, I know that it is time for a water change and more aeration. I have kept up to 60 four to six inch long fish, bullhead catfish, in a ~180 gallon (680 L) stock tank without much trouble for a whole season (April through September for me). This did require frequent water changes, lots of aeration and water circulation. Never had any of them die because of poor water conditions.

Catfishnut

 

[Jase]

Thanks for the tips all. I did find that the rocks in the pond turned a stunning shade of green after a while so might delete a few. Catfishnut your set up sounds really interesting. Watching those fish jump and feed would be great. Certainly couldn't use my goodies for bait though. There is certainly a wide range of interests and different ponds here.

 

[addy1]

Natural ones are the best, but we do the best we can.

 

[Catfishnut]

Thanks for the tips all. I did find that the rocks in the pond turned a stunning shade of green after a while so might delete a few. Catfishnut your set up sounds really interesting. Watching those fish jump and feed would be great. Certainly couldn't use my goodies for bait though. There is certainly a wide range of interests and different ponds here.

It is a lot of fun to watch the fish jump out of the water to catch a moth or a june bug! When the catfish were slow to bite in the river, I enjoyed sitting by the bait tank and watching them! I'd pull up a chair and pop open a beer and just sit and wait for a miller's moth or a June Bug to get too close to the water and BANG! Up would come a Bluegill or a Bullhead and grab the bug right out of the air!

The neighboor kids would wander over to my place occasionaly and I would collect some bugs for them to toss into the tank. They loved it because the fish would come right away and eat what they offered. Very special memories of that.

Certainly, you wouldn't want to use your goldfish or a Koi for bait. That just seems wrong. Around here, they do sell goldfish for bait, but I never liked using them. I don't think they work as well as natural bait. By that I mean native fish.

Gordy