Considering a Tropical Pond

MC.Arowana

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Dec 25, 2010
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worcester
this is a really great project i dream of having a house with a pool so i can do that great job and keep it coming and oh yeah the pacus might go after the plants ,you should add arowanas
 

ScatMan

Gambusia
MFK Member
Mar 3, 2010
801
5
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PA
forgive me if you said this already, but how much did those beads run you? if you don't mind me asking.
 

Duncan6618

Gambusia
MFK Member
Jun 15, 2009
313
5
16
Texas
I think the beads came out to around $160 per cubic foot, I needed 6 cubic feet.

Some fishy pics to give an idea of the job the permabeads are doing at pulling out the fines.









 

kendragon

Silver Tier VIP
MFK Member
Mar 23, 2009
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wow! that is crazy clear. Looks great.
 

troppond

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Aug 9, 2010
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westfield, indiana
you did this right, why don't you add a some texas cichlids? my jak dempsey survived temps below fifties because I thought he died and then found him one day after about 30 days below fifty
 

Duncan6618

Gambusia
MFK Member
Jun 15, 2009
313
5
16
Texas
Yeah I'm going to try some texas cichlids soon. I added one during the winter and it was doing fine until we had 3 days of temps in the 20's and the pipe to my bog filter froze up. That was my only source of aeration at the time and I lost him along with some koi & goldfish.

I wasn't able to get a pic of them but I added some red shiner (Cyprinella lutrensis) that the lfs was selling as Rainbow Dace Barbs. Very cool little fish, I'm hoping they will reproduce.
 

ScatMan

Gambusia
MFK Member
Mar 3, 2010
801
5
18
PA
Duncan6618;5128385; said:
I think the beads came out to around $160 per cubic foot, I needed 6 cubic feet.

Some fishy pics to give an idea of the job the permabeads are doing at pulling out the fines.
awesome pics!!!

wow, that is expensive! i'm thinking about getting an "advantage bead filter" from sacramento koi. http://sacramentokoi.com/main.php?cid=3&sid=6 pretty much the same idea you got there.

i'm going to be converting a pool too just like this to a koi pond, so this thread has been extremely helpful, thank you!!

rainbow dace are really beautiful but i don't know if you could really appreciate them 100% in a pond. to me, all the little fish look the same from above.

did you ever give weather loaches a thought? i read that they could survive the cold so i tried 2 up here, but they died over the winter.

this thread really makes me want to move south!
 

Duncan6618

Gambusia
MFK Member
Jun 15, 2009
313
5
16
Texas
ScatMan;5129490; said:
wow, that is expensive! i'm thinking about getting an "advantage bead filter" from sacramento koi. http://sacramentokoi.com/main.php?cid=3&sid=6 pretty much the same idea you got there.
I had thought about using one of those but since the 30" sand filter was half the price and I wasn't entirely sure if my wife was going to like this I went with the sand filter. The permabeads put the cost right back to the cost of the 30" Advantage bead filter.

ScatMan;5129490; said:
rainbow dace are really beautiful but i don't know if you could really appreciate them 100% in a pond. to me, all the little fish look the same from above.
Their colors actually show up pretty well but yeah any rainbowfish would look about the same except these will handle the winters. They just add some variety and if they reproduce I think they'll look good with a larger school.

ScatMan;5129490; said:
did you ever give weather loaches a thought? i read that they could survive the cold so i tried 2 up here, but they died over the winter.
I think they would end up sucked into my pump because I left the pool bottom drain. That's the one thing I would recommend you do on your conversion is use a pond bottom drain. They have 2" ones that would be really simple to retrofit. I just didn't think of it until after it was too late. I may drain the pool down and change it someday if we ever get out of this horrible drought.
 
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