March days in the 80’s get the juices flowing to start cleaning up the ponds for the Spring into Fall annual migration of many of my fishes from inside to the outside. For those of you who don’t have the room or the inclination to set up a dug pond, perhaps a container pond is more to your liking.
The container need not be too large but at least 5 gallons should be the minimum. This size opens up a whole realm of possibilities. You could use a 1/2 of a wood or plastic barrel, livestock watering tub of anywhere from 50 gallon up to 450 gallons made by Rubbermade. These tub run about $40 for the smallest up to $190 for the largest. I’ve seen oblong rubber tubs in the 30 gallon range. You could use a kiddie pool, but these are really not deep enough. Large planters with out weep holes in the bottoms can work very nice and go well with the decor of the yard. You can also purchase a 20 gallon round plastic fold-up container with clear sides from the catalogs for about $15-20. These afford you the possibili-ties of viewing the fish from the sides. Five gallon drinking water jugs with the top cut off will do the same thing on a smaller scale.
Place the container pond in filter sunlight area, not in direct sunlight. You have to be careful the sun does not heat the water up to much. If you plan on growing some submerged plants, then, all you needed to do is add some substrate such as gravel and top soil. Add the soil first and cover it with gravel or pea stone. Place a flat stone in the bottom and add water slowly on top of the stone so as not to disturb the top soil. Amazon sword plants do very well outside. Vals and Sags also will grow to enormous sizes. I like putting tropical water lilies in my containers. This way I can remember to bring them in the Fall to over winter inside. Floating plants should consist of plants that will not take over the surface pond so, stick to plants like floating frog bit of mini water lettuce. To create a horizontal look add some dwarf papyrus and chamaeleon plant like Houttuynia cor-data. Also, variegated dwarf celery or parrots feather will soften the look of the container.
As for the fish, once the water reaches at least 70 degrees you can put in almost anything. In a small container pond Betta splendens do very well. Paradise fish can with stand temperatures down to 50 degrees. Pla-ties and swordtails will add color. In larger vessels 20 gallons and over and type of rainbow fish will thrive. If you are using a livestock tub Cen-tral American cichlids are a good choice and so are Geophagus from Uru-guay. These can withstand temperatures in the high 40’s. Killi fish( if you can keep them from jumping) and Corydoras seem to do very well also. This year I am going to try some bushy-nose plec’s. An added bo-nus is that you will not be able to stop fish in out door ponds from spawn-ing. With all the extra live foods from mosquito larva and daphnia and midge flies and larva the fish are primed and ready to spawn almost al-ways. If you keep the bio-load low by not over stocking of fish there will not be a need for filtration if you do partial water changes. The one thing you need to be careful of is an excess of rainwater. If there is to much rain the pH may drop to a level that the fish may be uncomfortable, but then again with regular water changes that should be enough to half the pH steady.
There is a new category in the pond show for container ponds. This will have a prize for most original idea. So start thinking and give you fish a vacation outdoors.