4,500 gal pool

Hi Everyone....

I was talking with someone last night about using an above ground pool for raising and growing out some fish in (mainly guppies and angelfish for now). I figured with the winters I have here I could do this ( I think ) The pool is 4ft by 15ft ... I guess that's about 4,500 gals of water ???

Have any of you tried this? It's a pool with one of those plastic liners..... how would I heat this? ( any ideas )

I checked the temp this morning and it's ~72F after this cold rain ... :inquisitive:

I was thinking about maybe using an oat cooker in a 5 gal bucket weighted down with gravel right under the hose the pumps the water back in :-\ how does this sound?

Input please

Thanks Everyone ;)

Beth

[DarkDiscus]

Beth,

If they can do heated swimming pools, this can be done too. I am all for the idea, and think it's great. Of course you have to realize that this is coming from the guy who is planning on setting up kiddie pools of discus in his basement.

When I spoke with Cary for his interview, he was telling me about the great colors and size his fish raised outdoors had. Lots of mosquito larvae for them to eat, plenty of space.

The heat would be one key step. I think that you could also take advantage of those solar coverings you can get for pools also. Cleaning could be a challenge, but if you can get a pool vac, and used it, it should work.

It is definitely worth a try and I would be really interested in seeing how it goes...

John

[joanr]

Beth, our Home Depot here has pond supplies, for ponds of all sizes. If you have a Home Depot look there for supplies. They have pond heaters, pumps, vacs and all that stuff. Also pond suppliers abound on the net.

Sounds interesting, we have people here that keep spring/summer ponds and then store the fish in large metal horse watering tanks during the worst winter months in their garages....I bet Discus would love a huge area like that if you could keep the water just right.

[Aquatic_Design]

Beth,
I could be wrong here but I thought that pool liners were treated with chemicals to reduce algae growth. I know the people who build koi ponds tell me you can't use a pool liner to build a koi pond. They said it would kill the fish.
Donna

[daninthesand]

Beth.

I'll put in my two cents worth here, but for a that much water you might look into a solar heating system. Depends on the amount of sunshine you get and how cold your nights get as well. I looked into solar heating very briefly a while back, and the initial cost is a bit up there, but it does pay for itself eventually.

Just a thought...

Daniel

[DarkDiscus]

Donna,

I've seen numerous photos from people who have turned old pools into fishing ponds, koi ponds, etc. It's possible they had to remove/replace the liner first, though. I guess if there is a algae retardant chemical in the liner, it would become much less intense over time as well.

Anybody know about this for sure?

John

I have no idea on the liner thing, but i know i took a bunch of culls and threw them in a kiddie pool all summer and they did great. Cary was not kidding on the color thing. Wow were they bright. I never did a water change, feed the pool or aything at all. When i took the pool down, most were still alive and doing well even though the temp was 68 deg.
I say go for it Beth. You will probably start a trend. LOL
Take care, Matt

[chuck]

I think the KoiDoc had a article about using pool liners for Koi and that they are dangerous because of the way they are made compared to pond liners, if I remember the article is from a guy who used one and the problems he encountered until he realized it was the liner he was using.
chuck

[Discusgeo]

Beth first off that's a big tank and those guppies and Angels are going to get lost. Anyway I have a pond out back that I got from Home Depot, it's like a pool liner and worked well. I am going to use this on my Full Moscow Black guppies I imported from Brazil. I already have some babies from these and I am placing the males in the pond, can't wait to see them in six months. I also think this winter one set of my Full Red guppies are going outside also. Just be carefull when you bring your fish back inside and put them into a tank. I was told they tend to jump out if the tank is not covered. I guess with all the room they had being in a smalll tank got them angry. I guess with this large pool you will get to swim with them also, start thinking out how you plan to catch them now Beth. Good luck with the pool and let us know how they come out. Maybe I can send you my Koi Angels and you can raise them in the pool for me. Darn I bet they would get big.
George

[ronrca]

Hmmm! Catching fish in a large pool! Kinda fun maybe! I guess you would need snorkel and goggles! :o

Beth,
You are giving me naughty idea! :-* ;D Now Im thinking of putting a pond liner downstairs. Talk about cheap instead of glass tanks.

[scottwheels]

My cousin heats his pool in winter with a coil of black poly pipe on his roof, and the pool filter pumps water through these coils. Without getting into thermal coefficients of heat exchange, you would need to experiment with the length of pipe to give you the right temperature. Also the solar coving would slow heat loss, but would you need to aerate the water then since gas exchange at the surface would be inhibited? Great thread guys, and I think you're on a good thing here.

Cheers, Scott

[Rick_May]

I did the same thing as scott's cousin, but I just used a garden hose and ran it hose through about 100' oh the black top. At the high point the water coming out of the hose was HOT 120. and it kept the pool in the 90's. I've thought about this and these were my thoughts.
1. most of the heat loss will go out through the contact with tthe cool air so to prevent this I think clear plastic tented above the pool would work.
2 heating, of course I was thinking discus, could be handled provided it only needed 10-15 degrees. pool heaters are easy to find or jerry rig.
3think of the discus 4500 gallons=450 fish. YEEEEEEEHAWWWW. swimming with the fishes sounds fun.

Hey Guys and Gals.....

I'm going to go ahead and add a few Guppies and Angelfish to the pool ;D

I have 2 outdoor ponds that have guppies in them now (the Home Depot kinds ) and they are HUGE compared to the guppies I have in the house that get all the proper care :-\ I don't even feed or do wcs on the ponds :-[

I guess they're eating all of those West Nile carrying Misquitos ;D

I'll let everyone know how they make out ;)

Thanks for All the input ;)

Beth

[Richman]

Outdoor pool sounds like a good idea. However, you can run into a few unexpected problems you don't have indoors. My brother in law who lives in the Little Rock area has kept an outdoor koi pool for several years in his large flower garden. For a long time, the fish would periodically disappear. He had to keep restocking. Couldn't figure it out. Then one day he stepped out and caught a great blue heron helping himself to his koi. lol They fly in, silently take a fish and fly off. A cover of some sort would sure solve the problem. He didn't want one so he just stocks comets now and expects the loss. If you are in swamp country, you may expect some type of predators when you have fish large enough to attract attention.

[Steve_Warner]

Hi all,
Beth, there is a technique out there called a thermal mass, which uses the Earth's natural insulating property to heat/cool the tank. A guy in Palm Springs, CA is building a tank like this outside his house right now. I have spoken with him and have his E-mail address. I will ask him if it is ok to give to you so you could ask him about this. I would think you could dig down a few feet and run a zig-zag length of PVC and pump the water from the tank-back in through this to possibly regulate the temp. Anyone have any additional thoughts to add to this crazy idea?

Steve

[BlueTurquoise]

I was about to say exactly what Rishman brought up. Here in australia we have all sorts of Kingfishers like Kookakuras and stuff so it would be like a bird paradise to have all these yummy angels and guppies! lol

Chong

Hi Richman...

I have a client that has a small outdoor pond and she tells me the birds carry her fish off from time to time :-\ I guess I should try and cover my pool when I drop the fish in ;) I haven't really encountered that problem just yet in my 2 ponds. I did find on occasion a few dead baby birds :( they must get thirsty and fall in or maybe it's from their first flights :-\

Hey Steve....

This pool is sitting where my future fish house is suppose to be built, on top of a concrete slab... the building is suppose to be 24' x 28' or somewhere close to that ;) I don't think I want to attempt to dig through it :o If you want to you can give him my email address MyCoffeeByIv@cox.net

I was thinking about an oat cooker that's used in the winter for the horses for warming the pool ...... and realized there's no thermostat on it :-\ So I guess that's out of the question >:(

I guess I could some how insulate the outer wall of the pool to help keep some heat in ??? I may need to rethink this before I do it ....

[CamiDebi]

Beth,

I like your idea, and wish you much success and fun. But 100' of garden hose on the roof won't heat 4500 gal's well in Feb. I live in SW Florida and my 15000 gal inground pool is heated by 8 12' X 4' commercial solar panels and the best I can get in Feb is about 80 deg. A solar blanket can raise it 5 to 10 more but they are a royal pain in the you know what to put on and take off.

Look in the paper for a used pool solar panel and mount it on the south facing side of your roof and you should be able to maintain low 80's all winter.

Good luck
Cami

[DarkDiscus]

Beth,

If you would do me a favor and keep a log on how this works out? Number and size and pics of fish added. Time spent. Temps. It would make for fascinating reading and be great for study purposes!

In a pool you won't have to worry about herons so much. Pellicans or kingfishers, however...) I think it will work fine, however.

Also, if you feed the fish occasionally, they will get used to it and come to see you so you can count them!

Good luck!

John

Hi John...

I just tested the water in the pool :o and I added a few floating plants.

Temp ~73
kh 2
nItrItes 0
ph well above 8.0 (I used a high range test kit and it looks like it' may be off the chart :o )

I'm going to go ahead and add a few guppies to it today... I'll hold off on the Angelfish and see how the guppies do first.... I think they're a little more tolerant of the ph ;)

I'll keep a log on what ever I add and take pics as well ;)


Beth

[DarkDiscus]

Beth,

I wonder why the pH is so high? Is your water that basic that it would be off the scale? Or is there something in the pool causing that? I'm curious.

John

Hey John...

I'm really not sure.... unless the last chemicals that were added (which has been a couple months or longer) are causing the ph to be that high :-\

With the kh only being 2.... I would have thought the ph would have been much lower :crazy: My ph from the tap after aeration is normally around 7.6 - 7.8 :-\

I went ahead and added 15 small Angelfish almost dime size.... If these survive for a week, I'll add more ;)

Beth

I forgot to add..... the Nitrates are 0

;)

[DarkDiscus]

Beth,

Typical pool chemicals would cause some problems... Any chlorine in there or did you add a million tons of start right?

;D

Any fish go belly up yet?

John

[TOMMY]

How'd you get something so big cycled? I guess that would be the least of your problems. Beth can you post some pics? This is getting really exciting.

-Tom-

[Rich_Long]

Didn't Jim Q say he did something like this once? IIRC, it worked out well.

[RAWesolowski]

I have a 30,000 gallon in ground pool. The liner is not treated with an algaecide, I guess that would reduce the amount of chemicals that I buy if they did. Pool algaecides are specifically marked as toxic or non-toxic and I probably wouldn't recommend them...

Given the size of the pool and that I use it for a pool in Michigan, I have a 120,000 btu gas heater. It will warm the water even on these cool days to a shrimp boil. Being in ground, the pool insulates well with nominal heat loss during the summer. These nights I use an insulating blanklet.

Thoughts:

Water will green up, when it starts to color add artemisia;
You will get natural predators, birds and insects.

[DarkDiscus]

See Beth, you can get a pool heater! I wonder if you can get a used one? You obviously don't need as much of a heater as bob for his big old pool, but he would lose less heat due to better insulation. I wonder how much that costs?

Bob - thinking about making a HUGE discus tank?

John

Hey John


Typical pool chemicals would cause some problems... Any chlorine in there or did you add a million tons of start right?

I didn't add anything to the pool as far as chemicals in the past couple of months.... I got to thinking that the chloramines I have in my tap may not be good for those Angelfish :-\ I probably should have added a couple bottles of Amquel :o

I haven't seen any of the Angelfish belly up yet ;D

Hi Tom...

I didn't cycle the pool.... I just tossed the Angelfish in yesterday and am hoping they're okay ;) Here's a link where I posted a pic of the pool ;)
http://members14.clubphoto.com/beth581954/930963/owner-cacb.phtml

Hey RAWesolowski.....


Water will green up, when it starts to color add artemisia;
You will get natural predators, birds and insects.

The water is already green :o what is artemisia ??? is that something like infusia ???

John.....

I'll have to check on a used pool heater ;)

Thanks Everyone,
Beth

[RAWesolowski]

Beth -

I misspoke, it's not artemisia but daphnia. Try this link:

www.ee.pdx.edu/~davidr/discus/articles/daphnia.html

John -

Funny you should mention the pool as a giant pond. I was joking with a chemical guy and he said that you can now have your pool biologically safe for fish. New products are out... I do keep the pool at 86F in the summer. Earthworms have a lemming like draw to it after a heavy rain. I wonder if my bride...

[Richman]

Beth;
I got an outdoor catalog from Drs. Foster and Smith yesterday and they have a sale on outdoor pool net covering. Never used it but looks like it would be great in keeping out predators and leaves/trash , etc.

[RAWesolowski]

Beth -

I stopped at the local LFS and was talking to the owner. He has tanks teeming with guppies and swords that he has pulled from his pond. It's that time of the year here in Michigan, drain it or have fish-icles. A couple of his sword females are 4-5" inch in length.

I mentioned your concern on algae and he suggested the daphnia as the fish will love the food source and that the daphnia will knock down the algae. He also mentioned that the big box hardware stores that sell pond supplies also have algae remedies that are safe for fish and that the price is very reasonable for the size of your pool.

[DarkDiscus]

I'm really excited about this project. I want some pics, once Beth is back in town and things dry out a bit. I'm very curious to see how the fish do.

John

[Saffwaan]

hi, this thermal mass thing sounds intresting. Can you get the guy to put up a chat string on th eforum. Or give me his email too?
Ok i am not planning on setting one up soon, but i love the knowlege, i am hungry for it.

thanks saff

[dm]

The big problem with using a pool for fish is that you can't really see them. I see the goldfish in my pond but until I brought a few in to help cycle a tank I had no idea how big and beautiful they really were. When I put them back out there they seem smaller and less colorful. Seeing everything from the top view does not do your fish justice.

[DarkDiscus]

Beth's pool project is a bit more ambitious than what I had in mind, which was a kiddie pool in the basement as a grow out tank. My thoughts were to grow the fish to adulthood in the larger environment, to see if it lent itself to faster growth and healthier fish. After a period of time I would pull the fish and transfer them to an aquarium to evaluate them.

Cary mentioned to me that he kept some culls outside in a pool all summer and never even fed them. At the end of the summer he pulled the fish and the were large and had great color. He also said that he raised huge guppies in wading pools - which is along a similar theory.

All I can say is - it sounds like fun to me!

John

[lub0]

Hi Beth's

What happend with the pool project? do you have more pictures?

Thanks

[rafall]

Hi All, I got this year a small 120 gal pond in my backyard.
I put some plants off Wisconsin lakes and they were doing fine. Than I throw several danios, 2 pairs of swords, 4 corys, 2 mountainloaches
(i think) and a koi. The only casualties were the mountainones and 2 females of swords (jumped out). The most serious problem was a overheating in hot Chicago's days tem raised to 90F but no casualties because of that (maybe just mountains ones didn't make it). Now all of those are in my basement, doing well. Swords are beautyfull big and very very red, danios were in heaven being outside.
But it was only small 120gal, approx 2 feet deep.

[Kevin]

Very intersting. I was thinking about raising fresh water prawns when we move to our land. Most of the rubber liners have chemicals that out gas for a few weeks, then they are fine. I bought a heater that I could never use in the house. It has warning danger fire hazard all over it. It was about 150 from rocky mountain. The solar panels are a good way to go. they are not that expensive used. We got a ten grand one from a doctor whos wife wanted to remodel for 500. It was heating the hot tub the water and a few blower things. this is in Colorado. Then theres the hot tub thing. I gave ours to her dad and they use it once a year if it is lucky. I wonder how that would work. They seem to awalys be on sale. I was useing a rubber maid stock tank to grow out angels for a couple of days until they all died. That defenatly has fungiside in it. The kiddie pool Idea sounds good too. How deep, what size diameter, mermaids or sea horses? Beth I believe I will try it this summer. What about oak wood for hideing places?

[FishRule]

I know this is an old post, but I would be curious how the outside pond idea has been doing? Still got fish outside?
I live in San Diego and I set up6 ponds outside ranging in size from 300 to 1,000 gallons, all above the ground, round horse watering tubs. They were stocked with various different wild livebearers, apple snails and corydoras catfish. This was in early Spring. So far, so good, even at temperatures in the low 60s, the fish are alive and doing well, even the corydoras catfish! I also have fancy guppies, mollies, platies and swordtails out there, everyone is doing well. This summer, I am going to try growing out some of my Koi angels in the ponds too, but obviously will wait until it gets MUCH warmer, LOL!
Take care,
Barbara

[MonkeeFish]

i dont noe if anyone posted this yet probably did but im kind of lazy to read thought all the posts at this time so forgive me if i am replying something here but you can get a pool heater for like around 300-400 buckz probably.

[M0oN]

Well I know it's a bit late but here used to be some nutjob on Cichlid-forum.com that I'd talk to on a regular basis, he had a 5,000 gallon tank and he would literally snorkel in it.

He kept it bare bottom, but to keep it heated he would make an X of sand across the tank and heat each of the 4 ends of the X so that it would be carried by the sand throughout the water...

[Jim_Guz]

Beth:

I keep a 4,000 gallon koi pond in my backyard with a waterfall and stream, etc.

To reduce the chance of predators (herons, racoons, etc) poaching the fish, I built slate ledges into the rock walls of the pond which gives it a very natural look and at the same time provides a deep water hiding place for the fish if they're under attack. So far (two years), I haven't lost a fish to a predator.

I've also used the black poly netting mostly to keep leaves out and it doesn't look bad at all because the black net looks transparent from a distance.

Jim

Sorry Guys I didn't realise this thread was still going :o

here's a link that should bring it all up to date for you ;)

http://forum.simplydiscus.com//index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=15127;st art=msg157040#msg157040

Again Sorry :(

Beth