Plastic preformed pond as tank

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J

Jag586

Piranha
MFK Member
May 28, 2012
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st clair shores
So all the tanks out there you view fish from the side my wife said I can have a fish room and I was thinking of using a 500 gallon pond as a tank for my fronts so my 220 can be used for something else but how is it viewing fish from above?


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Fish with a lot of color work great, if seeing them is your point, or if the color of the background of the pond contrasts well, but grey or natural color cichlids against a grey background tend to disappear.






 
By the way, I have use the preforms for raising fry outdoors and they work great unless you have raccoons in the area, then (because they are generally very shallow) they turn out to be raccoon smorgasbords.

The deeper tubs work better, but the deeper they are, the less visible the fish get when outside.

I now use the shallow preforms for raising artemia, and gammarus as fish food.
 
With the exception of kois, I personally get very little enjoyment viewing fish from above. You just can't see all the colors or all their beautiful details from this perspective. Of course, I wouldn't hesitate to use a pool/pond set-up as a grow out or temporary basis, but ultimately I want to view my fish from an underwater(side) view.
 
I agree with xraycer, koi are the best fish seen from above, and it took centuries of selective breeding to create that look.
In all my pics in the above post, I had to crop and torque the colors, and light to make them even reasonably visible.
Most of the time my pond appears more like this.

Here is a pic of some uros taken from a deck, they are in about 10" of water in the Everglades.

I had to drastically edit pics to be able to see them like this.
 
Any catfish? I too like seeing fish from the side that's why I was asking if anyone has done it I was thinking maybe a large catfish, koi, or turtles but with turtles you'd need land


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With preformed liners designed to be sunk in the earth id be wary them would fail unsupported. Never priced it but building a frame from lumber and using a pind liner may be a safer option plus you can customize it to fit your space.
 
I have some of the rubbermaid stock tubs, much like 2nd picture in post 3 above.
The 50ish gallon one is very shallow. I have two that are 100 gallons, quite deep.
They are great for growing out fry. When used outside, there's almost no visibility (algae usually takes over in the sun)
Inside, not too hard to keep the water clear, but still not nearly as enjoyable as a tank.
If you want to keep your frontosa maybe just as breeders as opposed to enjoying watching them, a big tub would probably be ok (although it would be hard to monitor the breeding pairs).

I like the tubs to grow fry outside in the warm months. They are also great for emergencies (like leaking tank or temporary housing/quarantine)
I wouldn't want them as a permanent inside housing though. It can be hard to see a dead fish on the bottom of one of the deep tubs.
Also, these things have a pretty big footprint. take up a lot of floor space.

I also share the concern about the performed pond liner needing dirt around it to hold its shape. Use a livestock water tub if you are going to do this..
 
I've used a 110 gal rubbermaid tub as a growout for cichlid fry and then for fancy goldfish. With the fancy goldfish it was a very pleasant view but for cichlids it was not. Ended up just putting all the cichlids back in tanks.
 
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