That's great dude! Yeah, ponds are great and I'm so glad that I've been able to make something like mine work out. But if there's one regret, it's the size. I wish I had a bigger pond. I got my inspiration from a guy here who had a huge pond with no mechanical filtration at all, just tons of plants and he successfully bred hundreds of dwarf gouramis and other fish. He said he didn't even need to feed them because the water garden attracted so many insects.
The bins at homedepot get pretty expensive. I've been looking around craigslist for a while (just dreaming, can't actually get one for myself cause of parentals). There's usually good deals of people letting go preformed pond liners of 160 gallons or so for $50-$80. And pond plants you can buy in bulk for pretty cheap online like aquabid or something. As for fish, I don't have that much time on my hands to feed them everyday, so bigger fish would have been a problem cause they have bigger appetites and the occasional insect would not have done, which is why I went with mosquito fish because I heard that they live through anything, and because they're smaller, they don't have to eat as much, plus they eat mosquito larvae. If I were you, I'd stick to smaller fish. Plus, when you do feed them, it's cool cause they all come up and it's like a flurry of fish eating. Plus, with a big enough pond, you could harvest them and sell them. In fact, a good idea for you would be a nice colony of paradise fish. I've always wanted to try a pair of those.
