DIY 45 gallon tub pond

[RLHam3]

What is the high day temp and the low night temp? Got to know how far it swings.

currently night temps are upper 60s and day has been around 75 (when the sunlight is fully on the tub). Both of these are temperature measures of the surface of the water. the tub is about 18" deep and insulated so its hopefully a little cooler towards the bottom. But it gets pretty hot in georgia and we can probably expect highs of around 100 for the hot days this summer. (water won't reach that temp though )

 

[knifegill]

Not bad. You have plenty of temperate and sub-tropical options with that temp range.

 

[RLHam3]

yeah, i'm kind of worried that it will get a bit too warm for the paradise fish though. Leaning towards a pair of rainbow cichlids

 

[RLHam3]

Took the pond down last week. At the end, the plant species were: anacharis, hornwort, pink pond lily, water hyacinth, water lettuce, duckweed, and Amazon swords (melons I think). The day temps never got above 82 in the water even though it sometimes got over 100 outside, and nights never got below 74-5. So the I’d say that the shade/insulation combo worked very well. Will post more about the fish and other animals in the pond in a bit.

 

[vinmanrocks]

that looks cool

 

[RLHam3]

They've lived in a pond all of their lives so they're still a little nervous when people are around their aquarium which makes it hard to get a good picture of em, but maybe I could get some more later.

I put 3 grayish juvies in at the beginning of the summer and got back 3 adults (2 are much yellower than when I put them in) and 3 1 cm long babies.

 

[Warborg]

Took the pond down last week.

Why did you take it down? I had one like this for 9 months, but I didn't have any support for it so it bowed really bad. I just moved the fish (roseys) inside this week

 

[RLHam3]

I actually took it down because it was moving to my new house. I'm really glad I took the fish out when i did though because 3 days later was our first "coldsnap." It got down to the low 60's and I'm pretty sure the fish wouldn't have done well. But I did recently find another baby alive in it after i drained it...

 

[RLHam3]

So its gettin to be around that time of the year again! After last summer, I am ready and anticipating this "tub season"

Went to home depot yesterday and got around 40lbs of river pebbles to act as the substrate. Washed all of the dust and grime off of it with the hose and then it went in as the substrate

Filled the pond that we made last year (earlier in this thread) by siphoning water out of one of my tanks. This way the water will be "seeded" with bacteria and this will aid the cycling process.

Its been unnaturally warm in georgia this year so I'm hoping to put fish in the pond within the next month or so. This year I put the pond in a location with a little less light because by the end of last summer, my plants were looking kinda fryed. Last year the main mass of plants was made up of hornwort. This year I plan to do that as well as anacharis free floating as the bulk of the plants. The top plants will be duckweed, frogbite, water lettuce, water hyacinth, and maybe a few tropical lillies. I havn't really got any ideas for substrate plants so i'll probably just end up doing vals and amazon swrods and what ever else I find at the LFS.




I also haven't decided on the fish that I will be putting into the tank. Last year I had my pair of rainbows in there and while they bread all the time, I didn't get too many young. I still have the pair of rainbows inside and have much more luck with raising their babies the "old fashioned" glass aquarium method. This year I'd like to try more dwarf cichlids, but I'm not sure what exactly. I have one what i believe to be a honduran Red Point (siquia) and a male apistogramma cacatuoides. I'm not sure that I want to put either outside though. I like firemouths, but they're kinda on the common side. I like the look of red ceibal cichlid. Any comments/suggestions?

 

[RLHam3]

Here is a top view of the tank. And by the way, if you look back at the pic i posted a few minutes ago, you can see a 150 gallon rubbermaid stock tank that I got a few weeks ago for $20. It has a leak, but the leak is so small that it would never make a difference. Just in case I got some silicon from home depot and i'm gonna try to seal up the leak.

I'm REALLY excited to get that going, but I don't physically have a plave to put it. My deck isn't too sturdy and I wouldn't wanna test it with an extra 1200lbs of pond. And my backyard and basement are really uneven. So until I find a solution to these problems, the tank will only have pollen in it :-(