by Angela Williams

Created on: April 24, 2009

I have a tip for transitioning goldfish from an aquarium to a pond. It depends on whether or not you bought them or are moving them from your aquarium. If you are purchasing new goldfish and would like to put them into your pond, here is what you do.

Take the plastic bag that the fish are in and let it set in the water for no less than ten minutes. If you can do it for twenty to thirty minutes, that would be better. The goldfish will then be acclimated to the water. Then, you can slowly poor the goldfish, along with some, not all, of the water that was in the bag into the aquarium.

Now, you are ready to feed and watch your goldfish explore their new home. Be sure to pay close attention to the types of plants that you put into the pond. Some of the plants can give the goldfish or koi infections of the skin and cause death. You might also want to consider putting a pond net over the top of the pond to keep birds from eating your fish. I have heard many tales of that happening. The herons just go straight to the pond and eat the fish right out of there. Especially when the fish are young and small.

Also, another neat tip for maintaining goldfish is make sure to feed them the goldfish flakes, it helps keep their color vibrant. Another treat you can feed goldfish is orange slices. They love it, it's great for their color and it provides them with vitamin C. I have seen them eat it right up. Be careful on the products you use to clean the pond. Some cleaners can be deadly to your friends.

Keep the algea to a minimum. It will be difficult for awhile, until you learn how to maintain your pond. An interesting addition to you pond my be plecostomus or snails. There is a wide variety of plecostomus. There are some very beautiful ones, like the zebra striped one and many other kinds. They help in keeping the algae levels down. The thing about plecostomus is they start out tiny, so they do not do a good job right away. When they get bigger, that's when you notice a job well done.

Another thing to consider about plecostomus is they can not handle the cold weather. So, you would have to have an indoor aquarium for them when temperatures got below about forty-five degrees Fahrenheit. Unless you plan on keeping your pond heated in the winter time. Then you can keep them in the pond all year round. The neat thing about putting plecostommus and goldfish in the same pond is that the temperature can be between sixty-five to seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit and both types of fish will survive. Keep in mind that plecostomus do get two feet long or longer. So, the aquarium will have to be a big one. As for the snails, they do an excellent job at keeping algae at a minimum also.

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