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I am thinking of building a pond in my garden shed. How would i go about this?
I want to keep larger Pl*cos in there (Panaque would be good). What else could i have in there? Possible other large cats (Red Tail)?
I was thinking of a large square plastic water tank from a house. How could i provide a way of seeing the fish.
What special requirements would i need to take into account?
How shallow could the tank be?
Would like to create a river setup (fast moving water with power heas at one end).

Bit of a wide range of ideas. But any advice would be useful.

You may want to think twice about getting a Red Tail....it would eat anything else in the tank that could come even close to fitting in it's mouth, and the get really big! You would need to turn half your living room into a pond to properly house one of these guys!

I was thinking the same thing, you have several options. You could build one out of bricks or concrete and fit a viewing window. Or you could buy a fibreglass holding tank. Beware these ptions are not cheap I looked into it and found that a similaly sized all glass tank was more or less the same price. You can get small ponds called pebble ponds. Some of which are not that small, 5 feet in diameter. Or alternatively you could build something out of wood. Sounds strange I know but do some searches on the web and yourll find instructions and specifications for building tanks out of ply. This can be a cheaper otion. but do a materials list and you will find that you willl still need to spend a fair amount. Wood, Epoxy paint, fixings, glue, silicon sealer, and a glass viewing panel. This might not be suitable for all fishHowever, I think plecos might chew through the paint!
As for getting a red tail. For it to be comfy it would need a lot of space and would probably have to be alone. Luvly though they are, some fish should just not be kept at all. (thats only my opinion, pls dont roast me!)

jason

As for getting a red tail. For it to be comfy it would need a lot of space and would probably have to be alone. Luvly though they are, some fish should just not be kept at all. (thats only my opinion, pls dont roast me!)

Totally agree Jason, these fish should be removed from the importers/exporters lists.

Hi,

I currently have two tropical ponds within my fish house. The main pond which up until a couple of weeks ago housed my large collection of Pseudodoras niger's, Pterodoras granulosus, Megalodoras urunoscopus, Leiarius pictus to name but a few, is 12' x'48" x 30". It has been constructed out of 9" wide concrete blocks for the front and back, and 5" wide blocks for the sides. The inside of the pond has been rendered, and a box welded butyl pond liner has been used. I thought of having a viewing panel, but was unsure about how to do this, so have made do with viewing the fish from above. This pond has been running for just over three years now. Now that all the large fish are gone I am thinking about using the pond for a south American set-up with the main aim of breeding some catfish.

The second pond is much smaller measuring just under 72"x 24" x30" and is home to a mixture of mainly Synodontis and Asian catfish. To be honest I need to catch the fish out in order to see exactly what I have in this pond!

Whatever you decide to do enjoy the end result, as I know that I certainly have.

Dorad

We have a 900 gallon pond 8 feet long 4 feet high and 4 feet wide in the garage made out of 2by4 fench post, with a liner. we have a red tail in it now with 2 purnos 2 shovelnose and a few others. they are all fine together all are about two feet long. I'm new to this so I don't know how to attach a picture or I would.

ricelc, I am interested in seeing your pond and fish pics,, just email the pics to me at katfishguy@yahoo.com and I will post them for you.

If your going to cut a viewing window into a polyethelen tank or fibreglass tank there are a couple of things that will make the job a lot easier and longer lasting.

Firstly always make a hole with rounded corners, preferably a circle. The pressure of the water on a round corner compared to a 90o corner is a lot less, and less likely to result in a "blow out" at the bond.

Make your window "pane" with rounded corners as well, this reduces the chance of one of the corners pulling away. Try not to be tempted into making too large a window. On large tanks, 50, 000l I only put a 300mm diameter "window." If you want to look in and see the "whole" tank put more windows in.

Make the window "pane" 50mm larger all the way around. eg. 300mm window needs a 400mm "pane."

If possible use a "plastic." It will scratch a bit more easily but it will bend to the curve of a round tank. I use a 3mm polycarb for the large tanks 25, 000l+ and as thin as a 0.5mm polycarb for small tanks 100-1, 000l.

Hope this helps. The tanks are a little bit more commercial looking but last longer and for similar prices, in Australia at least, you can get a larger tank.

Have fun.

Adam

http://www.aquamojo.com Mo's got a really nice 1600 gallon pond in his basement. You may want to check out his pond page.

wow guys, thanks for the info... with the rays and the tigrinus will eventually require an indoor pond or very large tank, may go with the tank having read that the 8x8x4 ond cost $2k to build... I'd been considering the rubbermaid 300 gallon stock tank, but would really like to be able to have my own shaped one. a few questions though...

In the ponds, how bad is evaporation? I live in Colorado and it's dry enough here that a covered discus tank looses enough in a week that you'd have to do a water change whether you wanted to or not, so that is of some concern to me. Temp for the tank will probably be about 82 degrees, maybe a tiny bit less.

Second, most of my fish eat from my hand, so I'd be pretty much assured of seeing them once a day, and the rays are easily visible from above, as well as very curious, but what about some of the pims and other catfish? especially aimed at dorad, with his experiences with the big doradids. Also, with the filtration and the necessary surface agitation, is it truly that easy to see the fish?

these are pictures of ricelc's pond



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