MMAX

Better check your local bylaws, usually anything over 2 feet deep needs a locking fence 6 feet high around the pond. Towns generally frown upon fences over 3 feet high in front yards, put the pond in the back and you can build anything you want.

It all depends on what you want to do with your tank. For a reef tank you want to shoot for about 1 pound of rock per gallon. 15 pounds in a 21 gallon tank should be a good start. Do you have a sump? What kind of filtration are you running? No sump, I was just using my existing cannister filter 205. I removed the chemical filtration, have lots of bio in there with the regular filter pads in there. I was going to go with a reef tank for sure. Get rid of all the bio pellets and foam blocks and fill it with live rock rubble. See my above post from May 18.

My mistake. The frogs in the above pics are juvenile wood frogs. Caught my first boreal chorus frogs a couple of days ago and couldn't believe how tiny these guys were. Little frogs with big voices. Excuse the pics again, not very good quality. And a few out at the pond. Top 2 are wood frogs, last 2 are boreal chorus frogs

It all depends on what you want to do with your tank. For a reef tank you want to shoot for about 1 pound of rock per gallon. 15 pounds in a 21 gallon tank should be a good start. Do you have a sump? What kind of filtration are you running?

When I caught the biggest guy, he had a darker stripe down each side which led me to believe it was a boreal chorus.

I guess another tell-tale sign would be small pads on their toes if they are in fact chorus frogs. I'll have to track them down and catch them again to find out.

Caught these little guys out at my pond, can anyone positively ID them? I've caught my fair share of wood frogs and I don't think that's what they are. I'm thinking they are boreal chorus frogs.

Live rock is essentially what the name says...living rock. It can contain stuff such as crabs, starfish and corals amongst a whole load of other things. When the rock is harvested and shipped (usually wrapped in wet newspaper) there is going to be die off of these living things. You go and throw this into your system and all hell will break loose. Ammonia from the dead organizims in the rock will kick start another cycle which you don't want in an established system. You can buy cured rock from certain stores or you can cure it yourself. Get a Rubbermain tub, a couple of powerheads for movement and a heater. I "cooked" mine for about a month and didn't have that much of a cycle in my 100 gallon.

Cannister filters are only nitrate factories if you run the original equipment inside them ie. bio pellets/balls and foam blocks. Keep your carbon packs but throw away everything else. Fill the whole filter with live rock rubble and you won't have a problem. Turbo snails are perfectly fine in reef set-ups. IMO they are a necessity. Yes the can knock stuff over but if you take the time and glue your corals down you'll be ok. If you're going to add more rock into your tank, you'll have to make sure it's already cured. If not you'll cause another cycle which will jeporidize all your livestock.

Every second day seems like a lot. Did you use one single piece of flexible liner? An ATO might be an answer, but I'd look into a possible leak or water getting behind somewhere. Even with my set-up with double the number of waterfalls and a wind-tunnel-like breeze blowing through my yard, I'm only topping off every 5 days or so. Just wait until the outside temps really start to heat up.

Different, but looks good. Informal design up top into a formal pool below. How long did it take to build?

The pond's roughly 1400 gal (see my build thread-My Backyard pond/Waterfall Build). There's no way I'm draining it and scrubbing it. Everything in terms of cycling will have to start over from square 1. Green water and algae is to be expected but will clear eventually. Thanks for the reply, I'll keep dredging the bottom and sides with my net.

Just wondering what everyone does in terms of spring maintenance to their ponds. I'm referring to the members who keep water in their ponds year round. All my fish survived the winter in the pond but my algae is getting a bit out of control. I've been scraping the sides and botton with my net, but I'm debating on renting a pond vac. How well do these work?

Had them since Sept/10. They always hang around together with no problems. You can't see the colors too great but they're green with bright orange tiger stripes. Nice looking fish.

Tank's been running for a bit over a year, here's a few pics... Lawnmower & Orange Spot Goby Clowns & Zebra Darts Foxface And a couple of full tank shots

Let it run for a good month before adding livestock. You usually start with a clean up crew before adding fish--snails, hermit crabs, etc.

Could be, are his scales lifting? I had one of my big comets in my pond develop dropsy in August. He looked like a big pine cone, stopped eating and sat in one place. I was able to scoop him out with my hand and ended up euthanizing him. When they get to this state they're as good as gone--has something to do with kidney failure and water retention.

I'm battling marine velvet right now, killed 3 fish out of 8 in my tank. Last fish to die was a 4" kole tang which I suspect was the culprit who brought it in. My 2 clowns were covered but I medicated them and brought them back to health. I don't know if it would work for freshwater but my display must remain fishless for at least 2 or maybe 3 months. With no fish to host off of the parasites will eventually die.

Thanks for all the comments!

What are you planning on doing with your tank (stocking wise)? How big is the tank? How deep? Usually a 2 bulb system will be not enough. Yes you do need actinics for SW but the number one thing is where you are going with the build (FOWLR, reef, etc).

Mine are staying outside this year (10 goldfish & 4 koi). Brought the ones I had last year in for the winter and they all died off. My pond is just under 4' deep, I'll shut off the waterfall, disconnect the tubing from one of my pumps to keep the water circulating and put in a floating de-icer.

Nice pics. I had a family of common grackles in my yard this year. First time I've ever seen them.

9" Regal in a 72gal? Not sure but I think the tang police are on the way.

Lots of people think their shrimp have died when they moult. Are you sure the crab wasn't eating the shrimp's old exoskeleton? Do you have lots of live rock/hiding places in your tank? When a shrimp moults, he'll hide for a couple of days until his shell hardens. Very unlikely that a hermit will kill a shrimp although they will kill snails and steal their shells when they need a bigger home. And like someone else already said, a slow drip acclimatization needs to be done--I slow drip everything I put in my tank, fish and inverts.