Pets Keepers Guide Forums

We are hoping to make a small little pond out in the shady area of the front yard later this year, and I found a very easy way to make one. You can make it using an old tire (no rim) and white or black plastic, and then it is covered over with rocks, and little plants around it, and when you are done, it looks like a real little pond.
I am thinking that if we get one of the solar powered pumps, then we don't even need electricity to keep the water moving and looking nice.
Of course, then we would need to put it somewhere that the solar pump would be able to get enough sunlight to run.
Anyway, here is the link to the page with directions for anyone else that is thinking about making a simple pond.

http://www.goodshomedesign.com/decorative-pond-tires/

Interesting concept. It will make a fine pond without fish.

If you want to have fish in there, it will need an outdoor aquarium filter for the nitrogen cycle. The filter system must be on 24/7 in order to keep the nitrogen cycle going. So the solar power alone isn't going to be enough unless you have batteries to store the solar power for night time use.

The selection of outdoor fish are usually limited. Unless you live in a tropical area with a fairly large pond, you can only have koi or goldfish and a few other species. They are quite big, so the pond can't be too small either.

Thank you for that information. I would only be putting in some small goldfish, and I have always kept them in a large container and never used any kind of filter for them. In fact, I used to have a few goldfish in my horse trough, and they caught any bugs and mosquito larva that got in there, and seemed to live happily enough in the trough. The horses would come and drink, and the goldfish would swim to the bottom of the horse trough, so they never got accidentally swallowed by a thirsty horse; and I never had to try and get the baby mosquitoes out of the trough. Plus, I really enjoyed seeing the little goldfish swimming around in there when I was out watering the horses.
Of course, when winter came, it was way to cold out there, so then I had to catch them and bring them inside the house.