Above Ground Goldfish Pond?

[g123]

Hello all!

I wasn’t sure where to post this, but it’s tangentially about my dear pet goldfish (that will soon outgrow living inside…) so I figured there had to be some other fish-people around here

I was wondering if anyone has personal experience with keeping an above ground pond with goldfish stocked through the winter.

I know, from another thread, that many of you keep goldfish in your stock tanks. Are they heated? Do you keep them in there through the winter? What size tanks?

I’m in Northern VA (USDA Zone 7a). I want to avoid digging a pond for a number of reasons, but I am having a hard time finding good information on whether or not I can just use a de-icer on an above ground pond, or if I need a heater, or if it just wont work or will be prohibitively expensive.

Has anyone had success with something like this? Advice? Links? Maybe this was an excuse to find other goldfish-obsessed COTHers?

[Casey09]

Are you considering doing this in stock tanks or another type of container? I used to know someone who had a preformed plastic pond inside railroad ties. I’ve also had a concrete pond above ground.
I’m on Missouri and typically for goldfish you just need to keep the ice from freezing solid because of oxygen. The fish hibernate and so you don’t need to keep the water to a certain temperature. I don’t think the fact that it is above ground will affect things too much. You can either run a pump in the winter or use a de over made for ponds. Whether in or out of ground, I think the cost of keeping it from freezing over would be about the same.

[2DogsFarm]

I have 3 “goldtrout” living in a 44gal aluminum stock tank - the oldest is probably at least 7, youngest around 4 - all nearly a foot long now & 2 of the 3 started life as feeders.

I used to bring them in each Winter until the 30gal aquarium I kept inside began to be too small.
So they graduated to the stock tank probably 5yrs ago.

They survived the Polar Vortex with only a floating de-icer & cheap pump circulating water.
Also made it through a power outage of several hours that had the top 2": of the tank solid ice - I made sure to keep a small hole cleared until power came back.

I don’t stop feeding them in Winter, but cut back drastically on what I do feed.
As far as I can tell they do not hibernate, but do slow down when it is frigid.

Every Spring the tank gets dumped & scrubbed, refilled and that is the hardest maintenance I have to do.

[Minerva]

It’s been a while since I’ve done freshwater and ponds, but…
Some people bring them in for the winter to a tank and others leave them out all year with a deicer, or even just a ball floating on the top. If the climate isn’t too harsh and the pond won’t be frozen for long, some people don’t worry about keeping an open patch in the ice.

I think the smallest sizes I’ve heard of are a 55 gallon traditional tank for winter and 75 gallon rubbermaid trough for the outside, for 1-4 fish. They do get quite large, after all, and are very messy. More room to swim is better for them, and more water to crap up is better for you and the maintenance level. That’s for the regular, “feeder” or “comet” variety goldfish that grow to about a foot, of course. If you have one of the smaller “fancy” types you can cut that in half.

And isn’t a lack of pictures considered a sin on COTH? I want to see the little dude!