I have a small pond also. I use a livestock tank heater in it for years in the winter and our winters get quite cold, the fish always survive, just don't feed..they stop eating when the temps drop. Those tanks will be quite nice...especially if you pump from one tank to another with a fall of water..if the water falls it helps add air to the tank which helps when the tanks are high. A cool watering can or some kind of tin moving the water would be nice..or a old pump or faucet even? The biggest thing I would suggest tho since it is metal and small is to keep the water cool...put large plants around it to shade it a bit, and put in near partial or full shade to keep the water cool. Stay away from Koi as it is too small to successfuly keep them for longer than a season, but goldfish will do just fine..good luck..share it with us when your done! Here is mine...

Catching wild crawfish might tell you something about them. In various parts of Kentucky, Arizona, Colorado and Florida, I've caught many crawfish using a cloth bag and a piece of dead fish, or even raw chicken. They will cling to the cloth bag trying to eat the food inside so singlemindedly, that you could just tie a string to it, throw it in, wait 10 minutes then slowly pull it out. Depending on the season, it may be completely covered and you could get an instant meal. I've kept a pond with my dad in Tucson Arizona for many years with gold fish, 1 coy and some very small black fish I don't know the name of. I attempted to introduce crawfish several times and once they get to a certain size they try to run away and in arizona, that never ends well for them. I've found that if you have a shallow pond with liner, don't bother trying to keep crayfish unless you want to feed the birds. If you can keep a pond by digging into solid dirt or clay and just fill it with a hose with no liner, crawfish do well. The ponds in my families land in kentucky has a huge number of crawfish, and they are totally untended, but about 15 feet deep in the center and about 50 feet in diameter. They like to burrow into hard clay and if they don't find that they generally don't flourish. If you are able to get them to flourish, they will always run away when their population reaches a certain amount of fully grown members. If you want something to keep the fish population down, buy a small snapping turtle, but expect all you fish to have injuries.

Looks like Dave and I get our share of aberrations! Michelle first a disclaimer: If it's going to happen to someone, I'm it! I can't even grow a lotus. I found this out the hard way, there are all types of plecostomus. Very few only eat plants and algae, most eat a combination of plants and meat, most of the spotted ones eat more meat. I put two in our pond years ago. A few years later, when the plecostomus got bigger, most of my fish came down with some sort of bacterial infection on their sides. Big open sore places. After tons of money for meds, and water changes, etc, someone finally asked me if I had any plecostomus in the pond. I removed them, and never had a problem with the fish again. Corrie

Hi, whyndy! Welcome to the forum. My pond isn't "hooked" to the well in any way. It was filled with a garden hose, and about once a week, I top it off about an inch, due to a little bit of evaporation. I bought the circulating pump at Home Depot, and I got one designed for ponds up to 500 gallons. (The tank holds about 425). Mark ran an electrical line to the area, and the pump is plugged into a box as shown above. It circulates the water through a biofilter which we bought at Home Depot at the same time. (The guy there was very helpful in picking out what we needed). One of the most important things is to have plenty of good aerating plants in the pond. Typical aquarium plants will work great, and you can also add some decorative floating plants, too, like water lilies. They help keep it clean and provide cover for your fish. They also help oxygenate the water. If you don't overcrowd the fish or overfeed them, and you don't get fertilizer in the pond (from potting soil), it should stay clear for you. But sometimes, it does take a few weeks to get it balanced. I recommend picking up a good pond book (they even have those at Home Depot) and reading it through. They will have plenty of illustrations and good tips to help you decide just how you want to set up your tank. It's not at all hard, and it is so rewarding. Good luck with your project, and feel free to ask any other questions you think of. Marcia