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im buliding an outdoor pond for various temperate fish. is there any cichlids which would be able to live in the pond all year?
ive already bought a large pond canister filter and there will be 2 goldfish and 2 small koi (4-6" ) going in (i already have them) and possibly some perch.
i live in newcastle, nsw so the climate is similar to sydney.

hi
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i rekon,the more hardyer cichlids,like flowerhorns,convicts,red devils,green terrors,wolf cichlids,salvini,they would be ok in the warmer months,but some of those newcaslte winters as i remember were pretty cold,and without ample heating i rekon they mite get way to cold,then the problems would start,plus the aggresion that comes with the fish i mentioned above is also a major issue,also i remember reading,with ponds,u need a good coverage,some sort of wire or mess or even thick shrubery,cause if there is any cats around,(and most areas where there is houses there is cats)they could get to your fish,even birds can take your smaller fish,it also recomends,a place for cover,the bridges over the ponds are great for this,or some rock work hanging over the edge,can provide cover,anyway hope this helps ya

thanks hokese, well we have 2 dogs who hate cats so we dont ever see any and they usually scare off the birds as well. ill probably put some terra cottapots in so the fish get somewhere to hide and we dug up a big terra cotta pipe which may go in as well after ome cleaning. its an above ground pond and where having some problems with leaks. there are three pipes going out of the pond, 1 for filter intake, 1 for filter outtake and one for the power cables from the pumps and lights. the one for the power cables is the bugger. today we put some heat shrink stuff over the opening and some pond sealer paint slouthered all over it. it still leaks o where thinking of blocking off the pipe and just run the cables over the top of the wall. the only poblem is that some of the cables are not long enough to reach the powerpoint in the seat next to the pond.


oh and we have a large black pot in the middle its full of water now (the pot) i felt the water and it was very warm so it sort of acts like a solar heater. probably wouldnt be too good in those cold overcast days though.

hi
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well as i said in the warmer months yeah i rekon they will be fine,as for the leaks,if you bought it new,i would be taken it back for a new 1,if not,fill the pond right to the top,then dry off the outside walls,then check for more leaks,if you find em,circle them with a black texta,or mark where the hole is somehow,then when you think you have found em all,empty it,then let it really dry out with a good sunny day,then get some silicone from your lfs,or hardwhere(its gotta be non toxic too,and you can also get it so you can paint over it easyly)clean the area around the hole,then all this with a good dolop of silicone should do the trick,this same process should work for the hole where you put the heat shrink stuff,now for your leads,you can get longer leads from bunnings,and extent it yourself,we had to do the same thing when we built my old neighbours pond,and is was cheap and easy,also,even when the days are over cast,as long as its still summer,i wouldnt worry to much,but if you dont mind me asking,what will you do for heating when winter rolls around,ive herd(and i done this too, in the tank ive got outside in my pergola),ive got 2, 300 watt heaters,they say to use 2 big wattage heaters outside,so when it does get cold,the job of heating is split between 2,making them work no where as hard if there was only 1 heater,so this could maybe be a option for ya in winter,anyway good luck,and have you decided what cichlids you are guna put in yet?
ps,i hope you dog is trust worthy,otherwise he could be snacking down on your fish

we built the pond ourselves out of heable. the only leak is the cable pipe and we first used silicone to seal it, that didnt work, then we used the heat shrink stuff and it still leaked so we put more heat shrink and pond paint slouthered over it and then we pit extra silicone over it and it still leaks but not as bad as it was. today we had it 3/4 full and the fountain going as we had a christmas party. the leak wos on and off sometimes it wouldnt leak for a while than it was dripping out.

dont think our dog has ever eaten a fish before, we used to have a shallow pond with a few goldfish in it. some of them did disapear but there was often a large blue herron in the pool area which was fenced off so the dogs cant get to it so it think when the dogs wernt watching it would dine on the fish. some of them (goldfish) were of a decent size too, almost a foot long including the tail. the new pond is twice as deep as the old one so the fish should ber able to get away from birds.

dont think heating is an option as our electricity bils are already extremely high. could possibly get cichlids in the spring and sell them to the lfs in autumn. but that would be irritating for the lfs (if it is a common fish like convicts or oscars) and for me as i have to hand a fish ive had for 6 months away. id absolutely love something like a rd or oscar but heating is a problem and not many lfs would want to take in a large common cichlid.

i went to a lfs yesterday and they had some silver perch and they were so cool they acted just like the cichlids and hey were a good price too, $11 for 10-15cm. i hadent been to that lfs for a while and they now have a good native section. they have archerfish, sleepy cod, auzzie bass, perch and some others i cant remember. pretty good fro the fish supplies considering its a full on pet store.
they got a new plants section too and more coldwater fish (bsically more varieties of goldfish). the guy who runs te place is really nice too he gave my grandfather good advice about the fish he was buying (he just set up his first aquarium in 25 years). gonna go back there more often.

hi
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yeah man they sound a much better permanent choice,all i can think of is as long as your filtration is upto scratch,theyd be fine,
also one other thing,im not saying to try this im just telling you,weather you try em is up yo u.when i had a pair of convicts,due to them flogging some tankmates baddly at spawn time,and my qt was already full,oh and this was like 10 at night to,i was forced to put them in a tank that i had only half setup in the garage(a brick and concrete garage and they get COLD even in the warmer months),i hadnt hooked up a heater yet cause i was guna get that when i had the cash,so a long story short,they spent the next like 3 months in there,and they had sevral batches of babies,AND rasied them no probs,now that is a hardy fish,they were thriving with out a heater,plus this was a very basic tank,only 1 flower pot,nothing else in it,just a very tiny amount if grave,,but i will say this,they were nasty,if you were to try them,DONT GET A PAIR,get a male,then you wont have to deal with spawn aggression,this can also happen with 1 female,they will still lay even without a partner,and still gaurd there eggs as if they were guna hatch,and if you want some vareity in your pond,just a male is a much better choice than a pair,a male is still agrresive,but not as bad when,when he watching over the kids,you probly new all that anyway,but i hope this helps mate

thanks again hokese for posting. yeah i like convicts, they are tough little buggers and look good too.

horayy! the pond doesn't leak anymore! thanks to half a tube of silicone. in the process of me siliconeing it up i got silicone in my hair

put the gravel in, turns out we need to buy more. it doesnt even cover the whole bottom.

oh and happy christmas

hi
woot woot woot woot woot woot

lolin the hair that would be a site too see,glad to help,and to hear you nailed all the leaks,good luck with ya pond

iv got most of the silicone out of my hair now, finished putting the substrate down today and put the plants in. we had the plants in buckets filled with water for about 3 months so they arnt in the best shape. looks good now, got everything working (except for one of the lights, it blew the first time we turned it on. my friend has turtles and he said i could have one if i wanted. i havent got a lisence but theyre easy to get. probably put a big rock in or one of those floating docks if i got one. the water doesnt reach the top of the pond (thanks to the overflow we put in) so it would have a hard time getting out. problem is the dogs might eat it (my freinds cat ate one), one of them likes the taste of blue tongue lizards. probably talk about this in the off topic section

hi
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i dont think im getting a turtle now, to hard to look after (too messy). today i bought an eel tail catfish (think its tandanus tandanus) and is in a 20gallon tank with the goldfish and koi.

currently the pond is completely empty as it turns out it was leaking on the bottom. hard work taking all the gravel and water featue out again. put some of my dads magic waterproof mixture down and then it started to rain so we had to put a tarp over it so there will be no fish in it for another few weeks.

hi
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dont you hate that,when you just wanna get it up and runninand something keeps holding u up....

yeah, its horrible. well we put some more of my dads homemade waterproofer (its got mix of bondcrete, rendering cement, waterproofer, and that black powdery stuff that gets everywhere which ive forgotten the name of) and some off the shelf pond paint on top.

i believe you (hokese) have some flowerhorns? i saw some the other day at omalleys (apparently its supposed to be famous around australia for its great aquarium packages) its not the best fish store in town anymore (it was about 10-20 years ago) i dont normally go there but its actually in walking distance from my house so i went there for a look and they had flowerhorns! it was the first time id ever seen one. they occasionally get some rare fish in there but not very often.

hi
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that stuff you are talking about,just be carefull that it doesnt leach any nasty chemicals into your pond water,you would hate to poison your fish after all your hard workand you finally seen a flowerhorn a,what did it look like??big,small,hump,no hump,

they (flowerhorns) were only little so they didnt really have a hump. the pond is still leaking, its half empty after a day and a half

hi
woot woot woot woot woot woot

ahhhh no,i feel sorry for ya,talk about having leaksyou must be ready to drive your car over it by nowtheres not much else you can do,except pull it down and start looking for leaks and sealing them up,(easyer said than done),jeezz you have had some badluck getting this up and running a?also at my lsf store,they have a bunch of action sheets,how to setup tanks,how to feed your fish the correct way,how to keep fish the rite way,anyway,maybe you can try your lfs to see if they have some of these,because one of the action sheets,is how to setup your first back yard pond,and how to matain it,i grabed these ages ago,cause my freind and i were building a pond at his place,and i must say it helped us greatly,and they are free,if you cant find one,would you like me to post my copy to ya,it just mite be what you need to get it all done..let me know

we filled it up 2 days ago in the morning and even though we had constant rain ever since we filled it up it has still dropped 100mm. will have to completely strip it down again ( the big pot takes 4 people to lift it out) will put a few more layers of pond paint all over the pond. its so far taken 3 months since we demolished the old pond and the fish are obviously getting uncomfortable in a 2'x1'x15" tank (2 6" koi 2 5" goldfish and a 7" tandanus tandanus)

hi
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mmm,yeah it would be stressfull on them,well good luck

today we found where it was leaking! it was those pipes again. the pipes have to go through a garden bed. that was where they were leaking. we dug it out and emptied the pond and im waiting for it to dry overnight and ill silicone it up tomorrow. finally im going somewhere now

hi
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