Hi Mazela and welcome to the pond forum, We used to have a number of pond folks from "Oz" who posted here quite regularly.
But I guess they are all sitting by their ponds in the sunshine, without a care, lucky devils! LOL

You would have to keep a check on that rain water as it tends to be on the acidic side [5.6 on average] anything lower than that and it is considered as acid rain.

In pond water you are shooting for, between 7 to 8pH.
The pH of pond water rises as the day progresses, being at it's high point in the afternoon and lowest in the morning.
Do a check both morning and afternoon over a few days and see how the pH is and go from there.
"Horton"

Hi
Not familiar with your climate but 1fthe temps stay above 32,0 You could maintain it with tropical plants and fish. I live in S. Florida in the US so know about heat lol
I had so much troube with goldfish not Kookaburras but night herons .Switched over to tropical fish. They also love the acidic rain so are much easier to maintain.
Interesting the problems associated with keeping ponds in various areas of the world. Most interesting was a man in Tanzania in Africa. Pond was visited by elephants I doubted netting would help with that problem lol
Never did hear what the solution was lol
I keep a lot of Austalian plants including water plants
but have no idea where they come from.
Anyway good luck with your pond Any problems with Kangaroos or Parrots gary

Yay, another Aussie!

Down south in Melbourne we don't have quite the same issues usually, although currently predicting 4 days in a row over 40 deg Celsius.

I'm still fairly new to ponding myself (just completed my first effort) but heres a couple of things I took on board from my research and put into practice in my pond.

I read somewhere that if you try to maintain >30 percent surface area coverage (lillies, duckweed, feature rocks - whatever suits) that will give your fishies a lot more places to hide from predators. The other one is to give them some depth (>45cms if possible) so that they can spend more time further away from the surface - again making them harder to become dinner.

I live less than a kilometre (as the heron flies) from the local lake and have heard of a local bird that took 34 fish in one afternoon from a close neighbour not long ago. So far all mine are still present and accounted for, and we're into our third week with fish.

I've also used rainwater from my tanks to fill the pond, but probably not a great comparison for you. Although I used a liner there is a bit of cement mortar in my pond holding rocks in place and I'd expect a small amount of leeching from that which would raise the pH up again. I also had a leak behind my little waterfall that meant regular topping up (tap water, tanks were empty and still are) for the first couple of weeks before I fixed it. pH is stable in the high 7's.

Which area of QLD are you? Regarding "acidic rain" I'd think most of QLD should be fairly good. Weather moves across from the west (largely sarcely populated) or blown in from the coast (open ocean), so I would be surprised if it was very low at all. If you could do a test and let us know I'd be interested.

Cheers

Russell

I'll add a welcome to the previous posts as well. I'm always interested in posts from Australia and other far away places. It stirs up the wanderlust that I inherited from my parents who loved traveling as much as possible.
I have heard of problems with using rainwater,but it is mostly from the collection method. Roofs can collect minerals and chemicals that wind up in the runoff. Newer roofs are the worst for this. It may not be a problem for you since your fish are happy. Frequent heavy rains are supposed to be good if you can avoid collecting the first rush which would have the worst of the contaminants. Another problem would be if the rainclouds passed over an area where there were a lot of chemicals and contaminants in the air such as heavy industry or big cities. Some of this can be eliminated by letting the water settle and then flushing the waste at the top and the deepest part. Your system of barrels sounds good. Can you post pictures? Sandy

hi all
thrilled to receive so many answers. will post pics if i can navigate that. post on pics on ebay so i should be able to do it. will be posting lots of pics of new pond in progress by hubby (in about 1 mth he starts). i got scared after my first post and reply and started topping up my barrels with aged tap water, i wonder what rainwater does specifically to fish, anybody know??
i figured, by the time i bought a test kit and then stressed awhile(cause it was not right) and then bought the ph DOWN and UP I should just age the tap water and it should be right.
I'm afraid i used to have a BIG pond elsewhere and i tested the water 1 day( got a shock) and spent heaps and lots of time stressing trying to keep it up and in the end, gave up and all through it , the fish were fine, at the beginning ( when the PH was down and at the end when the PH was fine and kept on going down)
Probably not good advice but now i tend to feel, if the fish are fine (as mine seem to be) I use heaps of filtration
i tend not to worry too much about the PH.
PS i was using rainwater off an fairly new big shed, but i do have to say, the fish seem to be doing great, since i keep them outside. 2/3 of the barrels covered with water hyacinth and water lettuce ( they love to chew on those)i put duckweed in them every 2 weeks (since they eat it all)
i seem to think lots of green stuff works for me. i have never had an aglae bloom problem yet with that theory. go figure

could anybody could let me know specifically what i should look out for when using rainwater exclusively??

ps. i am not sure about all the pollution stuff. i guess head in the sand stuff for me(until it affects my babies)we do get heavy rainfall where we are on the bayside of brisbane QLD

will post some pics if i can navigate my way around it soon.

mazela

If the rainwater is traveling through several tanks or barrels over a long time and you are using it only for topping off, you may be alright. You don't say what the roofing materials are and that can make a difference. Try not to use the water at the very top of the collection barrel since oils can collect there. Aging the rainwater can help to eliminate some, but not all chemicals.
The PH thing can be critical and using the stuff sold in bottles with measurements for aquariums is not the way to go. Rainwater is usually acidic or low PH. This is damaging to the gills of fish. It can literally eat them up. Most fish can tolerate a PH higher than preferred but not always. What kind of fish do you have? The most damaging thing is when the PH levels change fast. This can and will cause big fish kills from shock.
I have a big aversion to rainwater when it is from storms that have passed over areas such as swamps or recently treated farmland. It has caused PH crashes as do normal storms but it also carries pathogens and diseases that have killed my fish. Not everyone on this forums believes that but it has happened too many times for me to discount it. Now I make sure the pond is topped off before the storm hits and a hose is adding tap water during the storm to reduce the amount of contaminates that can be carried down by the rain if I can't get a cover on to deflect it. Since I am not familiar with the winds, weather and geography of your area I can't give advice for your rainwater purity.
You might want to do a search for PH crashes and rainwater. This is something that comes up fairly often and there are a number of posts that discuss both subjects.
Learning to use a test kit is critical to pond health. It should be done often but not daily. It can spook you into over reacting but warns you when a problem needs to be addressed before it becomes a killing problem. Test strips give lousy results. Sandy