Hi all! I hope this finds everyone well.
My goldfish tank is overstocked (I swear there addictive) so I bought a 300 gallon Rubbermaid stock tank. I was planning on putting quite a few goldfish in there. I also want to acquire a couple of yamabuki ogon koi. I need to determine what type of plant substrate I'm going to use, which plants will work, and what filtration system I should use. The local fish shop wants to sell me a Pond Master but I don't really trust them to sell me the best product. I'd like to add a waterfall but a friend added a waterfall to his koi pond and having the latent instinct to swim up river all of his koi jumped out to their death where he found them in the morning. Very sad. I looked into aquaculture to find a substrate to grow plants in but they were all inert materials used in hydroponics. I DID find fluorite and laterite and decomposed glacial granite and greensand. Can anyone suggest the proper proportions to use these in? How many koi can I get into a 300 gallon tank? I strictly adhere to the goldfish rule of 20 gallons per goldfish and there always healthy. The oldest goldfish I have will be 26 as of Augest 30Th. She is a beautiful orange oranda. I also wanted to plant plants that were beautiful and functional. Goldfish and plants have never mixed well but I keep seeing all these beautiful pictures of peoples planted tanks and would love to have the same. I also have two gunnera plants I'd like to add into the filtering process. There basically bog plants anyway. As long as they get enough O2 to the roots they will be fine. I'm also looking at water hyacinth and water lettuce. Here in Sonoma county there are four distinct plants people call duckweed. I was thinking about building a shallow stacked tray system where duckweed grows on a shallow layer of substrate and flowing the water back and forth over the planted trays.
My goldfish tank is overstocked (I swear there addictive) so I bought a 300 gallon Rubbermaid stock tank. I was planning on putting quite a few goldfish in there. I also want to acquire a couple of yamabuki ogon koi. I need to determine what type of plant substrate I'm going to use, which plants will work, and what filtration system I should use. The local fish shop wants to sell me a Pond Master but I don't really trust them to sell me the best product. I'd like to add a waterfall but a friend added a waterfall to his koi pond and having the latent instinct to swim up river all of his koi jumped out to their death where he found them in the morning. Very sad. I looked into aquaculture to find a substrate to grow plants in but they were all inert materials used in hydroponics. I DID find fluorite and laterite and decomposed glacial granite and greensand. Can anyone suggest the proper proportions to use these in? How many koi can I get into a 300 gallon tank? I strictly adhere to the goldfish rule of 20 gallons per goldfish and there always healthy. The oldest goldfish I have will be 26 as of Augest 30Th. She is a beautiful orange oranda. I also wanted to plant plants that were beautiful and functional. Goldfish and plants have never mixed well but I keep seeing all these beautiful pictures of peoples planted tanks and would love to have the same. I also have two gunnera plants I'd like to add into the filtering process. There basically bog plants anyway. As long as they get enough O2 to the roots they will be fine. I'm also looking at water hyacinth and water lettuce. Here in Sonoma county there are four distinct plants people call duckweed. I was thinking about building a shallow stacked tray system where duckweed grows on a shallow layer of substrate and flowing the water back and forth over the planted trays.
