Well, about a month ago I started an outdoor pond in an old clay pot - the ones you put plants in - (oh, a planter, right). Well, I wanted to keep it really low tech and grow plants in it to make a little side cash to spend (really easy stuff, anacharis and azola carolinia). This was september, temperatures were averaging in the 90s, usually hitting the 100s and I thought, "okay, this is going to work. a small 8 gallon pond in my backyard for fun. Well, I can't have anything electrical (no heater/airstone) because there's no outlets around it, so the water will be still for the most part. So, being the smart person I am, I decided to buy 5 mosquito fish (2 male, 3 female) in hopes that I could breed those too and prevent mosquitos from breeding in my pond. Well, things were good, it was for the most part self contained system where I just did top offs every couple of days and a water change once a week or two and things were good... UP until yesterday when the weather decided to have a sex change and go from the hottest week recorded in socal to about 40 degrees average with rain... So I checked the pond today after I came home and stuck my hand into freezing cold water. I searched around for about 5 minutes (remember this is only about 8 gallons) and couldn't find any fish. I guess they must have jumped out during the rain, but I looked around the floor and couldn't find any. I don't quite know what to do. I might take this one down because it does have a crack which slowly lets out water and that's kind of annoying, and use a larger plastic planter, hopefully something above 10 gallons and try to get one of those undergravel heaters to use so I can put in some more interesting fish like a pair of paradise fish or gourami. What do you guys think? Do you guys have any suggestions?
BTW: just checked the temperature of the pond: 58F
BTW: just checked the temperature of the pond: 58F
