I said at least 45 because I'm expecting my goldfish to still be alive by then (I'm 22 now), and I can't get oscars for a pond until it doesn't contain goldfish.. 45 is realistic for that dream I think, if anything its probably a little soon..
the hardest part will be finances to keep that much water heated, and getting approval to keep cichlids in an outdoor pond (I have a lot of restrictions were I live)..@jhw it gets pretty cold here, but I doubt it'd get cold enough to freeze a pond. It doesn't snow here - while saying that however, if it did it would freeze overnight and be defrosted by morning I recon. This winter I was doing smaller scale experiments with buckets, only one morning was they frozen, and it was only a small sheet if ice on top. There was nothing agitating the water in the buckets though, so I'm assuming with a larger body of water, with surface agitation, it wouldn't freeze.
