new to pond... help!

i would like some tips on building and care of the pond. i am also looking at a pond kit that is 8ft by 10ft, and was wondering how big of a pond i could make with that? and whats a good rule to know how big of a tarp u need for pond size? i am only looking for a small pond with only 3 or 4 goldfish and a few plants. the fish would spend the winter out side. and i live in ohio so how deep of a pond do u think i would need? i was thinking putting comets in the pond, what can u tell me abought them? srry im new to this

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Permalink Reply by Clarke on June 13, 2012 at 4:26pm

Make the pond bigger than you think you want it. I have never met someone who said that they wished their pond was smaller. Do not use a tarp. Spent the money and buy the EPDM rubber liner or Dupont's Xavan liner (this is what I have). Xavian is much cheaper to ship because it weighs much less than EPDM. As for how deep, that depends on how deep your frost line is in OH. I live in northern VA and my pond is three feet deep. You may need to go deeper. Comets are great pond fish. They can get 10+ inches in length, and can live about 7-8 years.

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Permalink Reply by Collin on June 17, 2012 at 9:47pm

For plants, I'd get water hyacinth and just put it in a corner of your pond and watch it spread. Water hyacinth is a floating plant and absorbs massive amounts of dissolved waster produced from fish, thus make your water cleaner and healthier, Also, another reason i highly reccomend it is because it really helps with algae outbreaks and keeps your water from getting green because it outcompetes algae for nitrates, phosphates and such as well as maintaining good water quality. Just make sure this plant gets full to partial sunlight and you can remove unwanted plants becuase it spreads very fast across the water surface. In the winter this plant does not survive so every spring people just buy a few water hyacinths and thats all you need because like i said they reproduce fast. I wanted suggest any submerged plants because the goldifsh will probably eat them so as far as oxygenation would be to maintain vigorous water agitation from your filter outflow. Last word of advice to give, make sure you have good biological filtration because goldfish produce alot of waste and a good bio filter is needed to support good health and water quality.

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Permalink Reply by Cire Loknok on April 13, 2014 at 2:12pm

In my experience, comets are fantastic fish. Mine are 4 years old, and about 7 inches. They are so fat, bright, friendly (I have them trained to be hand fed), active, hardy, and so easy to breed. I see mine spawn almost every day in the summer/spring. Comet goldfish are the way to go. I find them much more attractive than "fancy" goldfish varieties, they are much hardier too. I feed mine frozen and fresh peas (always heated up) Hikari staple pond food, omega one flakes, Tetra pond sticks, live duckweed, very rarely frozen brine shrimp, worms I find in my garden, flys, (any insect that isn't crunchy or pokey). They also enjoy munching on the hornwort in my pond, and eat a lot of the eggs they lay. I think that variety is the best solution than just feeding them one kind of food.

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Permalink Reply by Cire Loknok on April 13, 2014 at 2:28pm

Floating plants are great. water hyacinth and water lettuce are the two big species. salvinia and duckweek work great too, goldfish love to snack on them, but some people think they are an eyesore. You can never go wrong with hardy water lilies. Just make sure floating plants don't overgrow and choke them out! Hornwort is an aquatic plant that is unbelievably easy to grow. Anachris or elodea are also aquatic plants that grow very easily. Common bladderwort is a very cool aquatic, carnivorous plant (it eats insects) that grows easily, but if you keep it with goldfish, they will probably eat it all, they really seem to love that stuff. Parrots feather is a very cool species of milfoil that grows very easily above water, but can also grow immersed. Horsetail is a very cool primitive reed-like plant that grows in shallow water. It is very easy to grow. Juncus is another marginal reed-like plant that is very easy to grow, it has interesting spiral leaves. Cattails are also very easy to grow, but dwarf cattails can be a little bit trickier. There are many more easy plants, but these are the ones I have tried and had great success with. Don't start out by buying all the exotic lotuses, and tropical lillies. Start with the easy plants I mentioned above, and you should have great success!