Mosquitos only breed in stagnant water, if you have pump/waterfall providing adequate circulation then you wouldn't have to worry about mosquitos, fish or no fish. If youre filling in and planting - you would need to break up the bottom somehow - either remove completely or drill holes. Even bog type plants would need some drainage but maybe not as much as other plants that like drier soil.

We moved into this house 7 months ago and the pump and filter have not been turned on. We don't want to do it if possible which is why I am thinking of filling it. I have had aquariums of fish for many years and know the amount of work that goes into maintaining them, so I don't want to get into that.

Breaking up the concrete would mean that if we ever sell the house, the next owner will have to fix the damage in order to use the pond and run the pump etc. again. I suppose the easiest solution would be to leave it as is and keep scooping out the rain water. BTW we live in the desert.....and believe it or not, we DO get rain. Attaching picture.

Thanks, tropicbreezent. It sounds very tempting to start a pond (even without running a pump and filter). Our pond is around 100-150 gallon at best. I used to have 30 gallon indoor aquariums which had thriving live plants and fish. Another problem I did not mention is that we have pine trees which are a nuisance because the pine needles turn the water brown and acidic should I decide to have fish in it.

This is just one of the many features of this house that we wonder "WTF were they thinking???"

I like ponds (well, duh) but gotta agree with 'WTF'. However, it would be a real production to remove or mess with it. I would like to point out that a pond doesn't need to remain as clear as an aquarium and besides, if a few small water plants were in or around it, they would partially hide some of the potential crud of a minimally maintained pond.

I have two ponds. One never has flow and for the first time in years, I have stopped the flow for the other during the winter. They are both currently clear from settling of the turbulent crud from storms. OTOH, you actually could fill and mound up the whole bottom portion of your pond including all the cement 'stones' with 'soil', garden mix, etc. The entire mix would wick away some of the water that could be trapped into the pond section. I think the pond bottom might even be a win, win situation that would help in your dry environment.

Minnows are small, naturally short-lived fish that might work for you (unlike goldies and koi which are much too large and high maintenance.)

Not quite sure why you are averse to running a pump/filter without fish? It would oxygenate the water to keep it smelling good and the flow would dissuade mosquitos. Its really the fish IMHO that create the work - all that eating and pooping they do and having to keep conditions such that they thrive and don't get sick and die. Without fish, you could be a bit more lax - you wouldn't have to pay attention to your ammonia/nitrites/nitrates and DOC's and all that.

My pond is under a pine tree and its bad only a couple times of year and even then just daily netting out of the needles and pollen is all it needs. I would just get a simple pondmaster pump wrapped in netting or batting to filter out the larger debris - just pull it out as needed to rinse away junk and keep it from clogging.

Location under the trees aside, it really does look like a nicely made pond - I like the channels for the water to flow down. Im not seeing a pond with huge volume of water but maybe that's just not in the picture? Do you know how many gallons - if its only 100 or so I cant see it being a huge chore to net out leaves even on a daily basis. If a lot more than that - never mind, that would obviously be more work.