Sounds like you have a nice little farm pond. many of the baby goldfish will die off and a natural balance will be found between available food, number of predators and number of fish. I wouldn't feed them, they will find plenty of food eating bugs, weeds, algae, etc. No sense in adding to the bio load of the closed system.

If you want to get fancy you can add a Lake Aerator in the warmer months. Basically just a floating pump/fountain. it will add lots of O2 which gets depleted in warmer water.

So this natural pond has no filter, waterfall, or air stones? I have a small kio/goldfish pond and a larger natural pond (50' by 4' deep). Some of my goldfish have gotten too big for my small pond which has a waterfall and filter. I was wondering if I can move them to the natural pond which has nothing but frogs, turtles, and lots of anachris and other plants.

Thanks!

Yep - no filter, waterfall or anything. I've continued to top off the pond every week or so (a lot of water is lost to both evaperation and into the soil) and semi-drained and refilled it a couple of times.

The fish are thriving. We are feeding them koi pellets on a somewhat regular basis. Sometimes three times a day - sometimes once every three days. They are active and seem to enjoy swimming together or just hanging out in the cattails or along the shallows. All the shubunkin fry are getting bigger and there seems to be at least one more hatch group. I've got to get some of them out of there eventually.

The fountain idea sounds like it would be a great way of adding oxygen to the water. Getting electricity to the pond would be a major project. Does anyone know of a solar-powered pump?

It seemed to me that if other aquatic animals are doing well, then the fish might do well, too.

We'll have to see how they fare with winter approching. We live in a fairly temperate climate, so ice will never be a problem.

Hi
If i had a pond that size I wouldn't be able to resist growing Victoria lilies.!! Pefect size and depth and they LOVE muddy water.
I suspect you'll soon have 50,000 fish how is Cal. on escapees?? Have you thought of some gamefish to help control the population?? You can always eat them lol.
how fast does the silt collect?? Makes wonderful fertilizer for terrestrial plants. I only get a little bit once a year and it works wonders!!
My biggest problem is predation from water birds. They find carp delicious !!
if you have the time and are allowed some waterfowl are fantastic. Not too many of course and small species .
gary

When oxygen level drops it affects largest fish first. Sad! Since you have untreated water a constant flow( good article on koivet.com )is better for your pond. Water changes,and avoiding the trauma of large water changes and evaporation are advantages of constant flow.

So far so good - the fish just keep getting bigger and fatter. I'm thinking that the cattails and the large surface area along with a fairly steady breeze moves the water around enough to aerate it naturally.

We had an egret visit the pond a couple of days ago. It's only the second time in several months a bird has shown any interest. The first time, we chased the bird off. This time I figured the bird might help with the population control issue... I don't know if he caught anything or not. The fish seem to be pretty savvy about hiding in the cattails whenever anything comes to the edge of the pond.

I try and let the water overflow a little when I top it off, but since this is basically just a wet hole in the ground, I like to empty it by about 2/3s every once in a while to flush out any possible dissolved mineral, salt or toxin accumulations. It still takes 24 - 36 hours or so to refill it so maybe that gives the fish a chance to adapt.

Fortunately, there has been very little silt runoff so the pond has kept its depth over the last couple of years.

The pond is not connected to any natural waterways - just seasonal drainage swales and there is a 1/4" mesh around the 18" overflow/drain pipe to keep the little buggers from going anywhere.

Right now the pond is completely open to the native wildlife so introducing birds might not be such a good idea just yet. WeÂve seen bobcat in the area along with coyotes, deer and raccoons. A couple of weeks ago there were very large cat tracks all around the perimeter of the pond. I suspect we had a puma pay us a visit.

Our original intention was to fill in the silt-retention basin just as soon as we were done building our home. We never intended to create an entire pond/eco-system. Now, however, we are looking forward to incorporating the pond into our landscaping and hardscapes. I guess IÂll have to start looking into various aquatic plants here pretty soon. Waterlilies sound like a wonderful idea.