Outdoor tropical Pond In Tennessee

[fortino555]

Well, I’ve had my 300 gallon Rubbermaid stock tank in my garage for almost a year but I’ve recently noticed mold and I got a little one on the way and I want none of that near the house.. so my question is has anyone kept a outdoor tropical pond in a colder climate in the winter? I’ve got peacock bass and some larger cichlids. Any advice would be awesome on insulation and such. Maybe Leave the water really low in the winter and put a extra heater in? I think at the lowest we saw temps of 25 degrees last winter.

 

[Cichlidguy1023]

You can try and put a dehumidifier in, that's what i am going to do as soon as i close up my garage for the winter.

 

[BIG-G]

It’s going to be tough to keep temps stable and high enough.
You wouldn’t want less water volume you would want as much as possible.
The greater volume would be more resistant to temperature fluctuations.

I think if possible you would be better to build or purchase a building separate from the home and insulate and heat that.

It’s what I did.
I built a 12x16 building to house my fish room.
I have a small window AC for summer and heat for winter.
I’ve had it up for about ten years now.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

If you insulate it heavy and use heaters, the tropical fish can survive the cold times. Ted A Anythingfish had a 10,000 gal tropical pond with window in Seattle outdoors. It's, I imagine, a pain though. I agree with the guys above.

A properly rated dehumidifier is a must run for these in-house, basement, garage situations.

 

[duanes]

In Michigan, I believe you will have a hard time keeping it warm enough for tropicals even with heaters on constantly, in the dead of winter, and your electric bill would be nuts trying to just keep it from icing over.

Maybe if you put a green house around it, and placed it where it got full sun.
My 300 gal rubbermaid would freeze solid to the bottom Dec thru March in Wisconsin, and even with subtropical species like Gymnogeophagines, and koi from the real pond, I'd bring them in to a kiddy pool in the basement (any pond not more than 3 ft deep from solid).

And even with a couple dehumidifiers, my house needed to be remediated for mold beforeI sold it,
I had about 1000 to 1500 gallons of tanks on the first floor though.

 

[duanes]

Just noticed the Tennessee part, I used Michigan as a reference because its in your signature.
Does standing water ice over where you live?
If so you'd be putting any tropical at risk unless you seriously heat the Rubbermaid,, and cover and insulate it in winter, or even on cold nights. I had certain equatorial cichlids die in summer in Milwaukee on cold nights in my 300 gal RM.

 

[Jaymesy]

Mine in FL tropical madness community pond

 

[andyroo]

Jaymesy , how does this pond do through winter cold-snaps? What's the stock?

We've moved from the seaside to ~1600', so I'm having to pay attention to temperature for the first time in 20++years. These past two weeks have been 18~21C through the nights, 26+ in the day & tomorrow's norther storm is supposed to dip us to 16C. My Aro's in my office-tank in the town, but she'll be outgrowing it in the spring to move up here to her pond as permanent home.