ratwrangler

It was an old wine barrel - it was soaked, scrubbed and left Can't smell the wine smell anymore (just smells like a pond lol) so picked up the fish last Friday (2 weeks after I got the barrel). Oxygen weed and plant were sitting there a while before the fish too. I don't have a syphon at the moment - changing water using a bucket to try and get dirty water, but obviously it's not the best method... what syphoning techniques to people use? I don't have a pump/filter. Also, does 3 fish sound about right for a 120L ish pond? RW

Hi all, I recently got a barrel pond, complete with hiding tubes, oxygen weed, pennywort plant and three goldfish (2 comets, 1 shubunken). I was wondering what people can recommend as far as keeping things nice and healthy for the fish? e.g. What's the best techniques people have for cleaning? What products are a must? Food recommendations? Should/can I get a snail to live in the pond too? Also, the 3 goldfish don't seem to be winning vs a rather large number of mosquito larvae that keep appearing - anything I can do? I figure the goldfish are still quite small (6ish cm) so will eat more as they get older, and I scoop out the excess larvae when I can, anything else? Thanks! RW