[GrampsGrunge]

I set this tank up from early March of last year, and during the Spring, Summer and early Fall it was part of a larger system of stock tanks and acted as the whole system's plant bio filter. While the Lilies were coming back from the light and increase in warmth in March, I decided to put a few White Cloud Mountain fish in the 85 gallon "plant tank".

And later, as things progressed, 4 skinny little LFS Rosy Barbs were added to the tank with the White Clouds. The WC's of course spawned like crazy during April and May, and now we have about 200 of them as mature adults. Also the Koi in the largest stock tank spawned in June, and the Rosies and Whiteclouds ate a lot of the Koi babies. Everything sort grew exponentially after that.

Pictures of the tanks as they progressed, March 6th of last year..

Just getting some leaves coming to the surface.

New growth in late May after a rain...

High Summer mid July and the plant tank has almost become over whelmed by Water Hyacinthes. The Lilies were not competing well The nearly grown White Cloud youngsters were discovering the joys of swimming up stream and down stream to the other two tanks via their overflows. The Rosy Barbs all had vacated the little tank to check out the upper settling tank where they grew even larger. I'm surprized they coud swim in such shallow streams flows.

more to come..

 

[GrampsGrunge]

More images...
From early February, ( last month )

We've had a relatively mild winter this year only a few mild frosty morning and no days with below 35 degrees for a high. Saying this I did, last Late October put an old Ebo-Jager 200 watt heater in the 85 gallon pond after we prepped the bigger tank for winter and turned off the main circulation pump. I didn't want to have to buy some more Water Hyacinthe this spring and wanted to see if the Barbs and White Clouds would fare well with 50-55 degree water temps. I also made a pair of tank covers from some old 1/8" plexiglass sheet that helped with keeping the water temperature from going too low. Much to my surprise the fish and the plants did fine. Sometimes the pond would go below 50 but not by much.

My sister had an interesting experience with her backyard pond many years back in Portland OR. They had set up a satellite, above ground tub plant filter tank which had been populated with White Clouds and Zebra Danios.

Even with their harsh winters, the filter pond's little fish, the White Clouds and Danios made it through the winter with just a 100 watt aquarium heater to keep the water ice free. The Danios and WC's even spawned a couple of times. So she was giving the fish store extra fish at times.

Some images of the Barbs and White Clouds from last week.

 

[AGUILAR3]

What an awesome looking pond. Using any filtration?

My little 28g tub pond was doing great all year then out of nowhere, green water and hair algae. I'm almost afraid to fix the problem because the fish have never been happier.

 

[GrampsGrunge]

Thanks, it's been a interesting experiment.

For filtering, this late Fall and Winter we've just kept a long airstone, next to the Ebo-Jager, hooked to an airpump set at low flow and didn't feed the fish much. No filtering other than the Lilies and Water Hyacinthe slowly growing. Not much bioload with less than 70 little fish in the tank. Since the Koi tank, and settling pond are part of the whole set-up, (approx 500 gallons total)..

..later this month as the days' lengthen, the main pump will be cleaned and turned on, the settling tank cleaned and the plant tank will clear green water like it did last year. I was pulling pounds of Water Hyacinthe monthly from the plant-filter tank.

The settling pond will probably get some stem plants to assist. I'm thinking of getting Elgeria Densa.

We got a huge hatch-out of Daphnia in the settling tank last spring and it fed everyone. Not sure if the Daphnia will do so again this year. I'm hoping to get the Rosy Barbs to spawn this year, they've colored up so prettily, you'd hardly recognize them from the little silver runts they were last spring.

See that's the thing ponds and tanks that go green and all hair-algae aren't actually a bad thing. There's usually a lot of good food in tanks that go this route, Jorge Vierke is of the opinion that a green water or algae infested tank is a good place to put stressed and weak fish. It's kind of a fine line to run there though.

 

[AGUILAR3]

In the year that I have had my goldfish, they literally did not grow and inch. The green hair algae/water appeared close to 2 months ago and the goldfish have grown considerably and never have been more active.

Anacharis would be a nice addition to your tank. I have maybe 10 stems in my tub.



This is when it was all nice and clear

 

[GrampsGrunge]

It's been over a year, I've been cleaning up the 85 gallon stock pond, it was getting overgrown with Lilies. I've potted up the ones cleared out, and also opened up several gallons worth of additional water volume. Couple big water changes with the warming weather and adding some fresh macro fertilizers and we should be good for another couple of weeks.

My fish decided I was doing them a good thing. Actually I think they're still hungry, they'd eat all the time if they could, little gluttons.

 

[AWolf]

So inspiring. I'd love to see a wide view of the whole setup. In Virginia I could definitely keep the fish alive through the winter. I lived in Colorado for about 10 years, and kept an inground pond with only a black floating solar pool cover and fountain during the ice months. It would freeze completely over in -15 weather as you can imagine, but oddly enough, the rosey barbs survived and spawned every summer. The racoons and other varmint would eat my koi, but the barbs were too fast and small to catch I guess. I never would believe barbs could live like that until I saw it in my pond.

 

[GrampsGrunge]

I do keep a pair of big heaters in their tank during the coldest times, so I don't think I've had the temperature dip much below 50. It's presently, with our bump of warm weather, about 67 degrees. The White Clouds are acting like they might be spawning, I'm not sure about my Rosys, they chase each other a lot into the WH roots, maybe they are laying eggs and the fry just don't compete well. Last year there was about 10 new, young WCM fry that survived. I'd love to get some Rosy Barb fry going this year.

 

[AWolf]

I do keep a pair of big heaters in their tank during the coldest times, so I don't think I've had the temperature dip much below 50. It's presently, with our bump of warm weather, about 67 degrees.

Solar anything works so well in Colorado. I was just over 7000 ft. Full sun almost every day. That was the only reason I think the barbs survived as well as they did. The pond would thaw in days after cruel cold, and I guess there were some pockets of warmth in there somewhere. Big boulders in the pond probably held the heat as well. It's still a wonder how they lived under the ice. The pond was about 10 feet at deepest.

 

[AWolf]

How is the water moving from tank to tank?

 

[GrampsGrunge]

350 GPH pond pump from the 185 stock ( Koi) tank, to the 150 gallon settling tank (small Koi and grow-out White Clouds ) gravity overflow to the 85 planted tank, gravity overflow back to the big tank. It's not pretty but it works.


I think I'm going to try breeding Neons this spring/summer. I've kept them before in a tank that lost heat during a long power outage, their tank dropped to 64 degrees, didn't bother them a bit.

 

[BettaBettas]

It's been over a year, I've been cleaning up the 85 gallon stock pond, it was getting overgrown with Lilies. I've potted up the ones cleared out, and also opened up several gallons worth of additional water volume. Couple big water changes with the warming weather and adding some fresh macro fertilizers and we should be good for another couple of weeks.

My fish decided I was doing them a good thing. Actually I think they're still hungry, they'd eat all the time if they could, little gluttons.

what type of fish is that? beautiful!

 

[GrampsGrunge]

what type of fish is that? beautiful!

The big fish are Rosy Barbs and the little slender fish are White Cloud Mountain Minnows. I'm also keeping young Danio Chopra in this tank now. I accidentally added some D. Chopra fry with a small group of White Cloud babies. Now there are 3, 3/4" Danio Chopra living in the tank and despite the coolish temps are doing quite well. They like schooling with the White Clouds. Hope to grow them out some and have them breed in the pond.

 

[Nordic]

Danios are more temperature resistant than most give them credit for. I've even had them hatched from eggs at below 15C. I also have 2 batches of fry outside in half a 1000l liter flow bin. Overnight the temps can easily drop to 14C, as we are just starting to get to the hot part of the year now.

 

[GrampsGrunge]

Another Spring and another small change to the stock tank ponds.

The 175 pickup bed sprayer tank that acts as the solids collector portion of the ponds has been removed from the 'circuit' of water flowing around, It's back to the 250 gallon and 85 gallon tanks. I'm trying a small experiment right now with some extra DIY CO2 bottles/reactors. I've added an old powerhead with a pair of 2 liter DIY CO2 juice bottles running 24/7 to help with both the lilies and trying some L. Repens and Arcuata planted in some gravel filled small Tupperware totes. It's a little too early to tell if the small amount of CO2 is helping with plant growth but I've noticed a small bump in the Lily's floating leaves production. And the newer leaves are coloring up nicely, but that might also be credited to the fact I've turned off the airstones and reestablished the 350 GPH circulation pump. It's been a chilly Spring for the Oregon Coast, somewhat of a concern for the fish and plants coming into condition before Summer gets going.

Some pictures of the 250 gallon pond..

 

[GrampsGrunge]

So I was doing some trimming of the lilies and adding a swirl chamber to the outflow of the CO2 infuser, and I had been noticing some small fish swimming close to the bottom of the big stock tank, thinking they were the younger Chopra Danios, until they started working up the tank's sides, nibbling over the fuzz algae on that side of the tank.

:grin2: I have a half dozen, roughly 1/2" Rosy Barb youngsters!

Frankly I'm not sure how they even manged to make it to that size in that tank, I've killed over 10 good sized dragonfly larvae earlier this spring, ( I shred them up and let everyone feed on them, these fish love shredded dragonfly larvae!.) So I'm pretty happy with that new development, seeings how I've been wanting the Rosies to spawn for 3 years now. Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy! :bounce:

The DIY CO2 reactors are coming online with some strength now, but with over 300 gallons of water to infuse, I don't think I'm making a big CO2 contribution. There is some faint pearling on some of the stem plants I added, and the Lilys do seem to have taken off a bit.

Hard to get good photos of the baby Rosy Barbs as it's hard to see them in full sunlight because they tend to hunker in the shadows, under the plant trays and Lily pots.

 

[GrampsGrunge]

Link to video of my 250 gallon stock tank https://youtu.be/eSr7OtkAN5Q

 

[Roshan8768]

Looking very nice - love the breeding activity. I need to update my pond thread haha

 

[GrampsGrunge]

I've gone from running one 2 liter CO2 generator to 3 in the past week, after watching my pH do some moderate swings. I don't think I'm hurting my stem plants, but I want to have a bit of CO2 cushion to tide the plants over during the day and would like to see the mass of plants I have already started get a jump on the Diatoms and BGA.

Seems like an infinitesimal amount of CO2 added even with 3, 2 liter DIY bottles running 24/7. The Lilies are coming on with more vigor and I noticed that my Water Hyacinth, Salvinia and Water Sprite baby plants are starting to green up and grow better. They were looking pretty pale.

 

[Dman911]

This would get me sitting outside all evening. I wish I lived in a climate a little more suited for something like this. Beautiful!

Dan