Lynn G.

Thank you! It has been a fun project for the last two years, and I very much enjoy it.

High-current tank, currently housing the danio juveniles to be revoked, plus two dwarf gouramis and four guppies. And three assassin snails. Tiger barb tank, currently housing 7 tiger barbs, 4 gold white cloud minnows, and all the danios I am keeping (7 adults, 3 juveniles). Plus a Chinese mystery snail that somehow made it into my pond (inside the uppermost barrel).

Thank you both for your feedback! I read your comments right away, but haven't had a chance to reply because I was so busy working on all this. I was able to get the full water change done on both the 20gal tanks on Thursday and get the fish divided between those two on Thursday, plus getting some hornwort cleaned and into the tanks also. Nitrites were between 2 and 5 after the water change (which is why I was so worried about the pH) presumably because of junk stirred up, but they were down to 0.25 and 0.5 Friday morning, and no fish issues. Ammonia is at 0 - I think those tanks are in that spot where the ammonia is getting converted but the nitrite bacteria aren't quite built up yet. Not feeding the fish just yet. I plan on doing the water change on the third tank and moving some fish over there to alleviate crowding, but I probably won't be able to do that until Monday. The upside of all this is that I finally got an actual count on the danio juveniles, and boy did I underestimate - 43 juveniles! Plus 7 of the original adults. 43!! So I have also been active finding homes for them as quickly as possible through Facebook fish groups - they should all be gone within the week, and that will *really* alleviate the overcrowding. Then I'll need to start shifting the rooted plants in from outside, instead of just relying on the hornwort. Oh, and the long term plan for next year is definitely to keep the indoor tanks up and running through the summer with some fish staying inside, and some fish taking a summer vacation in the ponds, so I will definitely be better-prepared in the future. Thank you again, it was really helpful to hear from both of you so I could be more confident about what I was doing.

Oh, they're not filtered like that. It's seven interconnected preformed ponds with loads of plants, and... that's it. There's a solar-powered pump that moves water up from the lowest pool to the highest pool, and it has a giant filter box, but that's really just to protect the pump. Every plant and surface in the system is part of the biological "filter". I did take pond mud from here to inoculate my new filters, and I will be moving plants over to the indoor tanks, I just thought I had a few more weeks for everything to establish solidly, and I'm nervous about harming the fish

Background: I am entering the fishkeeping hobby completely backwards - I started with building a glorified tub-pond/water feature in my backyard (about 100 gallons total across 7 different pools, with a recirculating water current), then added plants, then added fish. I knew I would need to bring the fish in for the winter, because the pools aren't deep enough for them to survive the cold, and I knew cycling tanks could take 4-6-8 weeks, so I started cycling two of my three tanks at the beginning of August. Being ambitious, I went with the fishless "How I Cycle" method outlined at aquariumscience.org with multiple additives to provide nutrients to the various beneficial bacteria, with all the recommended initial additions (pond mud innoculate, triple phosphate fertilizer, baking soda, plaster of paris, baker's yeast, sugar, epsom salt, pure ammonia, iron sulfate, and my own hopeful creative source of nitrite, celery powder) - plus daily additions of ammonia, fish food, sometimes baking soda and celery powder. Cranked up the aeration on the sponge filters and bubblers, cranked up the heat on the heaters, and let it all do its thing. It seemed to be going well - the water cleared, ammonia is definitely getting processed from day to day, although I'm not very good about adding precise amounts. I've been testing with test strips, and I started seeing bigger drops in ammonia day-to-day the last few days, so I did the full API test kit this morning - pH was sky high (my well water is 8.0-8.5 to start with), ammonia 1.0ppm, nitrite 0.5 or 1.0ppm, nitrate 5.0-10.0ppm (I just have a bad memory, I can't remember the precise shade now.) Not bad for 15 days in, I added some ammonia and fish food and carried on. So here's the urgent part: around noon today, I checked the weather forecast and discovered the overnight low was supposed to be 49dF!!! My ponds are relatively shallow and follow the air temperature fairly closely, within a few degrees - and the overnight lows all week are forecast in the mid-50s. WAY too cold for the fish, and temps I wasn't expected for another month! It's still summer!! So I spent the afternoon (when I should have been sleeping, I work nights) draining the ponds and collecting the fish into 5gal buckets. I figured my best bet was keeping them inside in the buckets overnight with sponge filters for aeration and heaters for warmth, lids to prevent jumpers, and hope the heaters aren't too much for the small volume and close proximity. [Tiger barbs (7), danios (30ish), white cloud minnows (4), dwarf gouramis (2), and guppies (4) - tiger barbs separate from the latter two] My thought was to do a 90-100% water change on the two 20gal tanks that have been cycling, and add the fish in, and just switch to fish-in cycling. I have a third 29gal tank that I literally just got set up and started cycling two days ago, with all the same additions still fresh. The original plan and the way the tanks are set up was: Tank A - 29gal - heated to 76dF - dwarf gouramis and guppies + future otocinclus, low current, well-aerated, plant baskets at the top edge, moss ledges and some plants in substrate Tank B - 20gal - heated to 74dF - tiger barbs and white cloud minnows + future bristlenose pleco, well-aerated, heavily planted in substrate Tank C - 20gal - unheated + high current - danios + future flagfish + future hillstream loaches, some plants and moss After all this explanation - my question is, should I only do a big water change on the two 20gal tanks that have been cycling for a few weeks, and put the fish in those (which will be temporary homes for some until the 29gal is ready)? Or should I just change out the water in all three tanks, ignore all the additives, and divide the fish as originally planned? I'm concerned about the additives being at levels that are toxic or harmful to the fish, since the tanks aren't fully cycled and the additives haven't been broken down by bacteria. As long as I keep the tiger barbs separate from the gouramis and guppies, I have both options. Does anyone see any concerns with either plan? [Additional notes on fish distribution: originally there were 15 guppies and 8 danios in the ponds. The danios bred and bred, while the guppies apparently died off or were easy for raccoons to catch. I plan to add more guppies and maybe tiger blood badis to this large tank, and hopefully find homes for some of the danios. Just in case someone thinks my fish distribution across tanks is odd.] [Additional notes on pH: my well water runs about 8.0-8.5 pH, and clearly I didn't need to add baking soda to raise pH. I was hoping for nitrobacteria to draw it down some, or I'd correct the sky-high number with a water change. I know that I'll have to be careful with ammonia toxicity even at 8.0, but hey, no chlorine to treat!]

Now there's a funny accidental breeding story... This pond setup has been an amazing crash course in both plant and fish-keeping. I've modified the internal structures of the pools several times, and both fish and plants appear to be thriving. Given the information in the thread above, knowing all the tiger barbs had died, I added eight guppies to the uppermost pool formerly occupied by the tiger barbs. The same day, while going through my acclimation procedure for the guppies, I noticed an out-of-place fish in my central pool, and realized THAT A F-ING TIGER BARB WAS STILL ALIVE! Since these are seven interconnected pools, despite my best efforts to block waterways with plants, the fish sometimes wander, and this tiger barb must have escaped down the big waterfall into the central pool where there's a lot of depth and structure to hide in. Problem was, that's where my two blue dwarf gouramis live, and I don't need them terrorized by a lonely tiger barb. So, I restructured the lowest pool where the fountain pump lives, continuously circulating the pond water through the whole system, to make a home for the tiger barb and the school of tiger barb buddies I was going to have to buy him. But when I did THAT, I discovered that FOUR of my fireline danios had escaped from the central pool and were living in the lowest pool! So they got relocated to the central pool, the central pool spillway got blocked by a very enthusiastic pennywort, and the tiger barb has a new home and family in the lowest pool where they can't escape to terrorize my long-finned fish. Then, as a bonus, I realized the lowest pool had a bounty of mosquito larvae wigglers! They were everywhere! I used a net to scoop some up and put them in the central pool as a live snack for the gouramis, danios, and white cloud minnows in there. That was a few weeks ago. Then, two days ago, I look in the central pool while sprinkling in a snack, and see... tiny fish? That looks like danios, but are only about 1cm long? Cool, the danios bred, and there were some survivors! Time to buy some fry food. But then yesterday I look in the lowest pond to check on the tiger barbs, which is deep and dark, and I see... a whole swarm of tiny fish that are definitely not tiger barbs. Oh god. Those weren't mosquito wigglers. And that's how I accidentally did the two-tank method of breeding danios. So, in another 8-10 weeks, I'll be netting all the fish out of the ponds to winter indoors, and I may have some... or a lot... of extra fireline danios to give away if anyone in southern NH or the region is interested. It's survival of the fittest out there, so they'll be guaranteed tough! No sign of disease at all. Pond water and even some spare plants available to boost your nitrogen cycling - my ammonia, nitrates, and nitrites all consistently test as close to zero as the testing can read.

By sheer coincidence, I also am in southern New Hampshire and will probably have some fish to give away in another 6-8 weeks. I just discovered a whole lot of half-grown danio fry in my pond, so when I net them out for the winter I'll have a count of how many I can keep vs give away. What kind do you have?

This is my setup - constantly being tweaked and adjusted. Most recently I discovered that a single tiger barb survived - he escaped into the central pool with the gouramis and danios. I relocated him to the bottommost pool and got him some friends (tiger barbs).

Would the white cloud minnows be okay later in the summer? I expect to have the opposite problem before too long, with high temps. July-August air temps here get into the 90s with high humidity. The lows in the 50s overnight this week have really been a surprise, and I don't think we'll see much more. It was all 70s and 80s the last few weeks, otherwise I wouldn't have even tried fish yet. Yeah, I definitely wouldn't have added fish if I knew it would be in the 50s this week. Trying to find a happy medium between weather now and the expected hot weather later in summer. Thanks! I definitely plan to bring them all inside in the fall. How are guppies with higher temps? Thank you all for your insights!

Hello! I have been building a glorified bird bath and/or oversized tub pond for the last year, and last week I made my first attempt at adding fish. Half of them are definitely still alive and 30% are definitely dead, so I'm open to any suggestions. The biggest issue seems to be the wild temperature swings we have had this weekenx - my pond seems to be shallow enough that the water temp has also swung wildly, from a high of 80dF the day I added the fish to a low of 63dF that same night, to a further low of 58dF last night (all water temps, not air). I know that would be tough on any fish, but maybe there's a better choice of species? I also expect, given the pattern so far, that water temps will get pretty warm this summer, maybe even over 90dF. Here's the pond setup: Southern New Hampshire USA Full sun (currently 7:30am to 3pm) Six interconnected preformed pond molds, total of maybe 150gal. Lowest point has a solar pump up to the highest point, runs continuously in full sun and on a timer (10mins/hour) when overcast or overnight. - Fountainhead into ~20-25gal (8 inches deep) pool - spillway into 9gal shallow pool - waterfall down to ~70gal Central pool with plant shelf, 15+ inches deep, partially buried - spills directly into two successive shallow 2.5gal pools - then spills into 2ft deep 20gal buried pool containing the pump back up to the top Water conditions: Well water - 8.1pH and minimal mineral content when tested at purchase (granite/metamorphic ground water) Ammonia and nitrates both tested close to zero in the pond prior to adding fish Flora and fauna: Aquatic plants first added five weeks ago, additional plants added two weeks ago - some in aquatic media with fertilizer tabs, some free floating. Aquatic plants include hornwort, American frogbit, hardy lily, Joseph's coat, pennywort, moneywort, spiral rush, chameleon plant, and a few others. Some algae present, but not excessive Dragonfly and mosquito larvae present Wild leopard frogs have moved right in, all sizes. Structure: Each section of pond has some large 2-3 inch pebbles (box store variety bag, rinsed) at the bottom, plus some native trap rock (granite/metamorphic) and sections of oak limbs for underwater, surface, and bird perch structure. Fish attempted: - I added 8 tiger barbs to the uppermost section with the fountainhead (20gal). Some of them made it into the adjacent 9gal pool. As of yesterday morning, there are definitely 5 dead and 1 confirmed survivor, 2 unaccounted for. I think the cold temps did the worst damage - I thought I would restock in a few weeks once the overnight lows stay above 60dF. Seems like a good idea? The fish shop I went to insisted the barbs would be a hardy choice, though they admitted they didn't have any pond experience. - I added 2 blue dwarf gourami and 10 danios (5 leopard, 5... other kind) to the largest central pool. The danios seem to like the current from the waterfall to the outlet. It's hard to count those quick little buggers and there's lots of space to hide, but I have 1 confirmed dead danio, and I've definitely seen at least 1 gourami and 5-6 danios alive at the same time. It's only been four days, so I haven't retested the water yet, but I'm pretty sure temperature has been the biggest issue. There's plenty of food in there - algae, plants, mosquito larvae, plus some pellets I've offered a couple times. I didn't add any fish to the 20gal section at the bottom with the pump, because that section has a lot of level variation - there are a couple of small leaks and trickles off the waterfall I need to fix, which accumulates into a few inches lost from that pool over the day. Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks in advance. ~ Lynn