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While your 90L tank is a lot bigger than the bowl you originally had them in, it is still too small for goldfish for anything more than temporary housing as juveniles. Long bodied goldfish will grow to well over 12" and up to 24" and should be in a really BIG tank (100G+) because they are such...

Hi Cathy, Since you have a nice detailed post, I'll go through and answer it paragraph by paragraph for simplicity. Your 1,000G pond is the bare minimum sized pond for koi and is only capable of handling three koi. They need 300G each as a minimum. If you think you are having ecology issues...

The 20/10 "rule" only works for the first year or two for round-bodied goldfish. For long term success and health, round-bodied goldfish need at least a 55G 4' long tank for 2 goldfish but if they are properly cared for, they will out-grow the 55G tank also. I would say the minimum would have...

From what I can tell, the goldfish seems to be housed in a very small container. Common goldfish are supposed to grow to well over 12" and should reach up to 24". I can't tell if it's a comet or not... but if it is, it won't grow as large as a common but it will still grow to over 12". If not...

You should probably be vacuuming your gravel once a day, or at least a couple of times a week, with that bioload in the tank. There are no freshwater fish or species that will eat fish poop. I hope all three fish are still young and small as a 55G is not nearly large enough for even one of...

http://www.aquariumfish.net/catalog_pages/...hrimp_ghost.htm has a DIY shrimp cave to give them added protection during molting.

Actually, most pleco's are omnivores and some are carnivores too. They usually will only eat dead fish/shrimp but if they are not getting enough protein in their diet (they can't live on algae alone), they have been known to go after slow moving fish. Even the "Algae Thins" that I fed mine...

Weather/Dojo Loaches grow to 9-10" and a shoal of 3-4 would pretty much max out a 55G. If you wanted more activity, you could go with some Zebra Danio's or WCMM's for smaller schooling fish in the mid to upper level of the tank. Adding a goldfish to the four loaches would overstock the tank.

Can you make it a little longer... maybe more rectangular? 10' is kind of short for a koi pond. 6' x 12' x 4' deep (with an average depth of 30") would make the ponds volume around 1,300 gallons. If you could go 6' x 18' long, that would be much better since Koi should get very large...

You could probably have many more minnows (WCMM's, Zebra Danios, etc.). A big school of each would probably do well and if you have enough floating plants, they'll likely breed and you'll have a never ending supply of small fish for your pond. Remember to bring them in each winter. A single...

Here's a list of calcium rich foods and further down, there is a chart of phosphorous content in each food so you can feed them high calcium, low phosphorous foods to help avoid algae issues. http://www.applesnail.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3988

It could change color and patterns many times in its lifetime.

How big are your goldfish? Normally, goldfish will eat anything they can fit in their mouth.... sometimes they'll spit it out if they don't find it tasty or can chew it with their single tooth... like my MTS snails... but I'm sure it's stressful for a small snail or shrimp to get "mouthed" and...

If you have access to 6"x6", 8' long railroad ties type wood, you could use that as the frame. It would handle the outdoor weather better than 2"x4"s and plywood and use galvanized metal straps on the corners to hold the corners together... remember all that water pressure above ground is a lot...

If you are not near a power source, then the pump might be more difficult although there are solar powered fountains but they can be expensive due to the batteries used to store the power for nighttime running of the pump. Without a pump to provide circulation and aeration, you will not be able...

What kind of design did you decide on? What are your temperature extremes for summer and winter? Here is my DIY blog on ponds with lots of links and a couple of FREE "How-To" books on pond building with pictures. http://goldlenny.blogspot.com/2007/03/pond...d-diy-pond.html

When you did a "good clean" and then went away for 10 days... exactly what did you do as part of the "good clean" and what was the feeding, lighting, etc., schedule for the 10 days? I know that the "good clean" and/or the 10 days away were the likely cause but I need to know more about both of...

Your black moor is a much slower swimmer compared to the other fish so it cannot compete for food. This is one of the reasons we recommend keeping "extra" fancy goldfish in species only tanks and even fancy goldfish should not be kept with long-bodied goldfish which are much faster swimmers...

Most snails are more nocturnal although mine were reasonably active during the day also but I only had 1 wpg of lighting. How much lighting do you have?

Yep... looks like your snail is eating good. What goes in must come out... or at least part of it!

You could also add a DIY aquaduct... maybe a piece of split bamboo (hollowed out) or black PVC pipe... to the outflow of the filter so it then flows across the tank onto the glass before the water runs down the glass to the substrate. At least this way, the returning water will be much lower to...

Mold or algae? Can you take a pic?

A Koi should reach 1/2 of it's expected adult size in the first 2-3 years so a 10G tank is not big enough for anything more than a quarantine tank for a few weeks. They should grow at more than 1" a month for the first year so a 10G tank would cause stunting problems during this critical...

Sorry but I can't make it. My truck won't make it across the "pond". ;)

Start asking around at your neighbors with ponds or garage sales and try to find a small pond fountain and pump. Then you could build your own pre-filter for the pump and it would make a huge difference in making your pond more suitable for your fish. Here is my blog on a DIY pre-filter that I...

They may or may not make it. That is a severe change in water temp and one hour wasn't nearly enough time. You should have kept them inside and slowly acclimated them to the cold water in your pond over the course of several days to a week. With fish in a pond, once the water gets below 50F...

It's not Oxygen that grows the algae. It's the increased CO2 levels, light and nutrients. Removing live plants will result in more CO2 and nutrients available for algae but I don't think it would happen overnight. I would just do daily 25% PWC's and increase the aeration and/or surface...

Reminds me of a bar-room joke about a monkey and the 3-ball on a pool table... but I'll digress. Remember that what goes in, must come out. I hope that snail shell wasn't too big. :o

This can also result in the fish or snail developing Pop-Eye syndrome. ;)

A purely natural pond with no filtration or aeration would need to have atleast 100G per goldfish and lots of plants to handle the amount of ammonia put out by goldfish. Having gravel as a substrate probably makes things worse as it holds too much detritus which makes it harder to remove when...

If your water smells that bad, you need to increase your maintenance schedule on your tank and filter. Remember that as your fish grow, the PWC's and filter maintenance on the tank needs to be increase proportionately to the fish growth... and it's not just based on their length but rather...

Use some wood 4"x4" or railroad ties as an outside frame around the concrete and then put the liner up and over the top of the wood. This will keep runoff from the house (paint oxidation, paint chips, roofing shingle run-off, etc., out of your pond) Do you have a gutter on the roof above that...

That is exactly the same thing that popped into my head when I saw the picture. :D It's too bad you couldn't have cleaned up the frame prior to utilizing the tank. Is rust OK for fish? I've never really done any research on that issue since it doesn't really come up.

Fishkies, You started off great but you can't use the 1" (fish-killing) rule with goldfish or any fish that gets over 3" as an adult so saying 44" of goldfish in a 55G tank would mean quick death to the goldfish. Goldfish grow by eight times in body mass for each time they double their length...

Check this thread... http://www.fishforums.net/Does-Anybody-Kno...y--t201256.html

Why are you trying to raise your pH? There is much more to know about what is going on in your tank before you should be attempting to adjust your pH. Here is my recent blog about establishing your tap/source water baseline. http://goldlenny.blogspot.com/2007/05/find...r-baseline.html Once...

Here are the Shrimp Sites that I have in my favorites folder: http://www.franksaquarium.com/freshwatershrimpfarm.htm http://www.petshrimp.com/shrimpspecies.html http://www.aquariumfish.net/indexes/critters.htm (click the shrimp link) http://www.azgardens.com/shrimpfactory.php...

How cold does your coldwater tank get? Most often, coldwater tanks are really just unheated room temperature tanks. If that is what you have, what is the temperature range of the water and the room? What else is in the tank? If your water parameters and tank mates are compatible with Cherry...

Generally, goldfish are kept in species only tanks. If you have seven goldfish in a 45G tank, you are going to be severely overstocked since goldfish get very BIG. You should probably have no more than 2-3 fancy goldfish in a 45G if you have adequate filtration (10X) and do weekly or more...

If the water parameters are that much different, you should slowly acclimate them to their new water. Bring enough of your current water with you so you can set up their tank with their current water. If you have an igloo type ice chest, put large lawn and leaf type garbage bags (doubled)...