1. What Kind of Pond?
There are many choices. The pond can be made of plastic, or half of an old wooden barrel with a plastic liner, or a concrete pond with or without an epoxy or tile coating. Some pond keepers put dirt in the bottom of their plastic or concrete ponds to make their ponds more organic. Ponds also vary greatly in size from a few gallons to many thousands of gallons.

Lets suppose that you have a plastic pond holding 40 or 50 gallons of water, or maybe half a wooden barrel with a plastic liner like the one shown above. Ponds like this can be bought in the spring from local stores that sell pond supplies and from online stores. Click here for more details about my barrel pond.

2. How to Start a Pond.
Your pond probably comes with some instructions about how to install it. Carefully read and follow those instructions. The instructions may recommend that you add a water conditioner to neutralize some of the chemicals that your local water department adds to the tap water. Don't be impatient. Fill the pond with tap water from the faucet, add some water conditioner, and wait at least three days before adding any fish.

You’ll also need some floating goldfish food, which is appropriate size for your fish. Get an 8-inch fish net with a handle long enough to reach everywhere in your pond.

3. A Good Place for Your Pond
You can put your pond almost anywhere, but not where a lot of leaves or other debris will fall into it. Or you could cover your pond with lath or screen probably available at Home Depot.

Ponds use quite a bit of water, so it's convenient to put your pond near the plants in your yard and pump the old water from your pond on to those plants.

4. Good Fish for Your Pond
We recommend one of three choices

1. Fantails and Orandas
2. Pond Comets
3. Koi and Butterfly Koi

Fantails and Orandas are less aggressive than Pond Comets and Koi. If you prefer Fantails, do not mix them with Pond Comets or Koi. You can mix the Pond Comets with Koi, but a good many Koi keepers decline to do so because their Koi are often worth much more than Pond Comets. We've never felt that way, but then we've never owned a $10,000 Kohaku Koi.

5. Change Water in Your Pond.
Change 20% of the water in your pond twice each week. Remove some old water from your pond and replace it with fresh tap water from the faucet. In most areas of the country you don't need to add conditioner to the water when you change 20% or less. But changing more than 20% can be risky even when you add conditioner. Click here to see my 8-year old nephew, Nicholas, helping me clean the gravel and change some water in my pond.

How much is 20%? Click here for information about measuring and calculating volumes. In my barrel pond, shown in the photo at the top of this page, the sides are almost vertical. so 20% of the volume of the water in my pond is 20% of the depth of the water in my pond. This method won't work unless the side are nearly vertical.

I measured the water in my pond at 13" deep, and 20% of 13" is 0.20 x 13" = 2.6". So I remove 2.5" of water twice a week.

The water coming out of a pond is better for plants than the water going into a pond. So your pond won't really use much water; it will just borrow the water for a while, before it goes on your plants.

If you have a pond that is below ground level, you should get a water pump and use it to remove the water from your pond. The inlet to your pump should have a screen, so it won't suck up the fish. After you've removed 20% of the water, refill your pond with tap water.