outdoor fish

>>2365091
yeah get a pond heater. The right one(s) will keep you fine

>>2365091
>>2365148
You can also just do what all the pro koi people do and have an indoor tank to keep them in during the cold months.

Especially since it's only 50-75G. That's small potatoes.

The only tricky part is to keep the biofilter alive or get it ready for the winter months on time since half of the year the aquarium is not stocked.

>>2365148
are there any you suggest?

>>2365161
nah thats prob too much of a hassle for my parents, prob looking to keep 2-3 smol fish or one larger one with a bunch of plants that we can keep outside. any suggestions?
or maybe even turtles or amphibians; any easy aquatic animal

>>2365221
Mosquito fish or minnows. 50 to 75 gallon is to small for koi or goldfish.

>>2365221
>nah thats prob too much of a hassle for my parents,
If moving fish twice a year is too much of a hassle for your parents, they are about to get themselves way over their heads.

Successful outdoor ponds are expensive and time-consuming.

It may be possible to have a fairly low-maintenance one, but it is not easy to setup.

Not trying to be a downer, but a lot of people get into this hobby thinking you can just throw fish in whatever and everything will turn out fine, then wonder why everything dies so quickly. Ponds are even harder than indoor aquariums due so much being out of your control.

Give it a shot though, because it's cool as fuck and ultimately your family may find itself a rather rewarding hobby.

For fish, you should think more about square footage rather than volume. Common mistake is thinking about how many fish you can stock in terms of gallons. For a standard 75 gallon (about 4' x 2' area tank), it can comfortably house two full sized goldfish. Goldfish get huge as fuck.

Mollies could work well for you. They're pretty hearty and very interactive. Plus some colorations can look somewhat similar to koi from above.

>>2365263
I should add, in a standard 75G tank size, you could comfortably fit around 14 mollies of the biggest, fully grown variety (4" sailfin), although more realistically you could fit a lot more since they rarely get that large. 2.5-3" is much more common, so around 20-24.

Note: don't immediately fill it up with 20 mollies as they are pretty prolific breeders.

>50-75 gallon outdoor cat food dishes

>>2365295
Strangely I haven't heard of many people having this problem.

With Koi it's understandable as the koi are much larger than the cats. But I've seen tons of people with molly ponds and they don't seem to complain.

>>2365247
can they survive freezing temps?
>>2365263
yea, i def dont want to get them cool fish and just kill them. I'd rather get them some cool looking aquatic plants if animals arent an option, maybe well buy a couple cheap smol fish and see if we can handle those for a year first before moving on to mollies, those look pretty cool- thanks for the suggestion.

what heating options might be able to work? and if not, around what temp should i be looking at when moving them inside?

>>2365295
nah ive never even seen a stray cat where i live, just crows n smol song birbs

>>2365824
Mollies are cheap as fuck, btw. One of the reasons I suggested them. Very easy fish.

Generally you're going to want in-line heaters, but honestly I have no idea what kind of power you'd need for that extreme a temperature swing. They are certainly available though, in either gas or electric powered.

What about ducks OP? A friends dad had two ducks that he lured into his property/pond, fed them regularly and they'd fly away for winter. Might be hard to lure some but once they know it's a good source for food they come back.

>>2365966
50-75 gallons is a puddle, I don't know if it's big enough for ducks.

>>2365091
Feeder goldfish.

Restock every year for a buck. Everything else is a massive pain in the ass and it gives them a little bit of a life anyways. I throw them into my pond to control the mosquito population every spring. They grow fast, look ok, and eat everything.

Ayy just the kind of thread I was looking for

There's an ancient jacuzzi in my backyard that I just got the go-ahead to turn into a pond. Doing this as cheaply as possible so im getting a cheap liner, a cheap filter and a liter of water conditioner

I have 2 youngish koi to put into it. Aside from buying pond plants, is there anything else I need that's absolutely essential? I mean it, i'm going as cheap and barebones as possible

>>2366061
Naw. You got the basics. I suggest looking into diy stuff for anything you'd want. DIY is stupid cheap.


That sounds like a cool project though. Post pics

>>2365832
>>2365993
o thx thats a good idea, i can keep them happy from spring to fall at least before i ice pick them out
i feel bad about getting fish to kill them every year but at least they'll be happier than dying of disease in the pet store

>>2365966
theres a plot of construction less than a block away and theres hella ducks chilling there, im sure they dont wanna hang out in my tiny pond

>>2366061
that sounds p cool, i know a lot of terrarium/vivarium builds on youtube do a lot of cheap but hella nice diy landscaping builds that work in aquariums- but if youre going for essentials over aesthetics then maybe its too much of a hassle

>>2365306
Cats stealing the fish is rare and pretty exclusively starving ferals.
Its fuckin Herons yougotta watch out for. Crafty birds those Herons

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Hi OP, I have been keeping koi ponds for years and can answer whatever question. Herons are in fact ass fucks that will come and eat your fish. Ducks will come shit in your pond and introduce bacteria and parasites and eat whatever they find. Go to your local landscaping store and buy fruit tree netting. It's for covering trees and keeping birds out, but just spread it over your pond and secure it with rocks and nails and stuff. Also go buy some toy snakes and leave them near your pond. Birds flying over will see them and not land. 50-75 gallons is tiny like everyone else has said. You won't be able to keep koi, but that can keep some small goldfish for a while if you want colorful fish. Be warned though that goldfish actually get pretty big and they eat and poop a lot. Make the pond fairly deep and keep a heater plugged in during the winter. If the entire surface freezes, your fish are fucked and obviously if the entire pond freezes it's fucked so don't make a shallow puddle.

>>2365091
All you need is a bubbler m8 and koi can survive those temperature

What you need to be mindful of are cats and coons

>>2365091
You're looking for coldwater minnows, which are like goldfish, except they won't shit up the pond and are relatively small. Suggestions like >>2365993 are retarded.

Experience: Parents wanted me to build a pond for them, I did, despite not knowing the extent of how awful goldfish and koi are. Mother bought about 12 medium sized goldfish, dumped them in there, bought a shitty spring filter and called it a day. Pond was cloudy and filled up with algae the next week, never touched it knowing there could be some kind of contamination of dead fish in there so it's been unclean since November 2016.
I suggested minnows since they were smaller and can swarm but my mom thought goldfish and koi were more cuter. This is the last time I helped them dealing with aquaria.

>>2365268
>in canada
>-5C
>mollies.

>>2366923
>kills fish by not bothering to cycle
>blames it on the variety of fish

You should not be calling people retarded.

Obviously OP will have to follow the basic rules of fish keeping. I would also say >>2366895 is insane overkill unless you are keeping a pond full of valuable koi.

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>>2366961
>$10 netting and toy snakes are overkill

>>2366934
Read the rest of the thread. He's looking to have a heated pond. Any common pet fish would die in -5C, also >>2366910 is wrong. Your rate of survival of Koi would be abysmal in -5C. I would not be the least bit surprised if every last Koi died. Considering it's only 50-75G, I wouldn't even be surprised if the entire thing froze over, which would obviously kill any pet fish (there are actually some species that can survive being frozen and thawed, but none that are pets).

>>2366923
So you put in absolutely no effort and achieved shitty results. Checks out.

>>2366995
>>2366961
Parents went and got the fish and dumped it in there before I managed to do anything. There wasn't a need to cycle as their tap water didn't have any ammonia or nitrites because they don't live in a third world country, and I'm buying small fish, they wouldn't be able to produce a lot of waste in theory.

>blames it on variety of fish
It's true.

>So you put in absolutely no effort and achieved shitty results. Checks out.
Can't fight a lost cause.

>>2367601
>There wasn't a need to cycle as their tap water didn't have any ammonia or nitrites because they don't live in a third world country, and I'm buying small fish, they wouldn't be able to produce a lot of waste in theory.
Unless you are doing daily water changes, cycling is always necessary. Goldfish create a lot of waste even at small sizes. I guess you know that now.

The lost cause was that you didn't cycle the pond.

You could have fought it with daily water changes. Did you even use a conditioner on your tap before dumping it in?

You could have also bought products like Tetra SafeStart, which actually do work in jump starting the bacteria colony in your filter, although even then I would be cautious about fully stocking anything with it.

Your parents made a really common first time aquarist mistake, but don't think that you're off the hook. Everyone makes mistakes in this hobby, and you did. Even that King of DIY makes mistakes.

>>2367601
>There wasn't a need to cycle as their tap water didn't have any ammonia or nitrites

Holy fuck you don't know what the nitrogen cycle is do you. lmao

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>>2367601
Cycling has nothing to do with your tap water other than removing chloromine and chlorine so you don't kill your good bacteria.

>cloudy pond
>algae bloom

Wow, it's almost as if this pond was cycling naturally, like what supposed to be done before fish were added.

>>2366219
It's good to feed them a variety but not essential.

I feed peas too when i make some for myself and also a veggie spiralled zucchini which helps removing the snails too.