Indoor pond - heater necessary?

[Heyjeyniceid]

hi all,

Ive been pondering the logistics of building an indoor pond specifically engineered to hold many schooling typs of community fish ala a Koi pond except heated and indoors.

The indoor environment would be a greenhouse.

I live in Gilbert, Az where we have triple digit heat during the summer and winters soemtimes in the 30's. We have sunshine here about 300 days a year if not more.

Here is the advice that I need. Would I need to install heators in the pond, or could I just let the warmth from the suns rays and the indoor environment warm the pond to the adequet 78-82 degree range?

The pond, if made, would be about 20 feet long by 5 feet wide by .5-2 feet deep. It will not follow a typical rectangular shape, but rather would have two large round pools at each end connected by a winding shallower connection.

There are other concerns, but I figure this is enough for one topic.

thanks for any advice yall can provide.

 

[Opcn]

Cool When I get my own home some day I would like to keep a swimming pool full of zebra danios. as far as your project goes I would recomend that you throw in a hand full (5 or so) of 300w heaters just too keep the temp steady when it dips below 30 also you NEED to look into triple layer wall material for your green house so as to cut down on fuel consumption in winter because the only schooling fish you can get in cool water are white clouds and they are very hard to see from above. Good luck

Opcn

 

[Lateral Line]

The question as it stands is not really answerable. You have talked about the outdoor climate but not the indoor. The question that you need to ask yourself, is what is the temperature range in the greenhouse where you intend to build this thing?

A large body of water like that will not heat up or cool down quickly, so the daily range will not be that great, although in the summer if you have the sun pitching through glass onto the shallow section will warm that above the safe range unless you have some kind of circulation between the deeper pools.

In the summer, presumably you can open windows or whatever to keep the temperature down. In winter, I would doubt the sun shining on the glass will raise the temperature sufficiently without additional heaters if the ambient temperature is only 30, but I cannot say for sure without experience of the structure.

As a total aside, how will you see the fish? Simply from above?

 

[Heyjeyniceid]

yes, I see yalls point.

If this does become a reality, I may opt to install Jacuzzi Heators and turn them on dureing the colder months or somehow create a reador that auotmatically turns them on if the water were to drop to unacceptable temps.

Lateral Line: Yes, I plan to see them from the top mostly. Ive seen smaller fish in small indoor ponds around the LFS's here and it looks totally awsome as long as the water isnt moveing too too much. Especially in the shallower ends and especially in bright light.

 

[Lateral Line]

Fair enough. It's just that many fish are fairly dull from above. Their markings are such that they are not overly apparent to aerial predtors like kingfishers.

Good luck - interesting problems there.

 

[Opcn]

A jacuzzi heater might be too strong and suck them right through also you should have some rea shallows around the edges to discorage jumping fish dont jump from lakes.

Draw up a map please.

Opcn

 

[Heyjeyniceid]

as far as fish selcetion goes I plan to include the following:

Corydoras (Several Species)
Cardinal Tetras
Fancy Plecos (Several Species)
Dwarf Gouramis
Rasbora Heteramorpha
Dwarf Puffers (possibly, to control snails and Liverbearer fry)
Mollies
Synodonteus Eupterus
Elephant Nose
Black Ghost Knife(figure theres enough room)
Siamese Algae Eators
Amano Shrimp
Ghost Shrimp
Cherry Red Shrimp
Tiger Shrimp



One more thing I forgot to mention in my other posts is that besides looking good, this pond is also for photographic reasons.

After everything is established, I plan to take underwater photos of everyhting in the pond. I figure natural sunlight beaming down on a 30 strong school of Cardinals would make quite a good photo indeed. Or a pack of Corydoras Gossei/Aenus breaking though a forest of Cardinal Plant and Red Ludwigia.

and on a more WTF note, I may dunk my head in with a pair of snorkling goggles every now and again for uh..scientific reasons

I wish I still had photo shop so I could draw up a schematic or a scanner for that matter to show yall my hand drawn diagrams.

 

[Opcn]

Here is what you do
If you are on a PC then go -> start menu -> programs -> accaesories -> paint and that will work for a rought diagram
If you are a mac person enjoy the agony of eternal damnation.

pcn

 

[phoenix]

how many gallons are you thinking about for this pond Depending on the gallons you might want to think about pool filter and heating equipment. Or the jaccuzzi type equipment. I have seen several Petsmart store here using them for their tanks..

But to be honest I really dont think you need to worry much about the heater part.. Unless Im wrong about greenhouses dont they normally keep relatively warm inside even at night out here in Arizona?? The mid 70s degree range??

If thats true worst case scenereo, maybe all you would have to do is hang a couple heat lamps a safe distance away from the water on the really cool nights.

 

[Opcn]

Hey why dont you check out www.charleysgreenhouse.com I've been reading there catalog and they Ive figured out 7 or 8 ways to keep your water temp up. also as far as the BGK and eliphant fish are concerned you should avoid that you can keep a heard of EN's if you want but the bkg and en will be locked in continual electronic war fare.

Opcn