I ran a couple container-ponds for a year at my old apartment. It was great until the racoons discovered it. They would dig up the bottom and try to eat the fish and shrimp. Otherwise it was a rewarding experience.
I used medaka(ricefish) and a couple airline filters fed with a single air pump run into a splitter to control mosquitoes. I used an aquarium heater for a bit but the electric bill ended up being quite high because it ran too often. You're better off moving the fish inside in the winter if you're in a colder climate. I'm in San Diego and probably could have kept white cloud minnows all year but I was into medaka at the time. I also had a large population of neocaridina shrimp and aquatic snails that I hoped would control algae(they did not).
I got plenty of birds visiting, and the ponds became a favorite watering hole of the local bees. For whatever reason, SoCal bees are not aggressive, so I didn't mind the 20+ bees constantly filling up while standing on my floating plants.
I did end up buying daphnia and moina online since they never colonized the ponds naturally.
I also had a couple "pond jars" to maintain the daphnia/moina population. Those regularly attracted mosquito larvae which ended up as food for the medaka as well as my indoor aquarium fish. I figured the jars were a form of mosquito control since the larvae never reached adulthood.
I initially topped off the ponds with 0ppm, deionized water that I used for my indoor aquarium(I ran a hippie tank with 0 water changes so I needed pure water to top-off). Eventually I switched to using a filter housing filled with "catalytic carbon" which supposedly handles both chlorine and chloramines. I was scooping out enough floating plants regularly to balance the incoming minerals from the tap water used to top it off.
I'd do it again at some point when my daughter is old enough to appreciate it. But next time I'll use some protection against critters digging up things. One nice companion to all of this is a $300 chinese microscope. It's fun to see the pond life under magnification.
I used medaka(ricefish) and a couple airline filters fed with a single air pump run into a splitter to control mosquitoes. I used an aquarium heater for a bit but the electric bill ended up being quite high because it ran too often. You're better off moving the fish inside in the winter if you're in a colder climate. I'm in San Diego and probably could have kept white cloud minnows all year but I was into medaka at the time. I also had a large population of neocaridina shrimp and aquatic snails that I hoped would control algae(they did not).
I got plenty of birds visiting, and the ponds became a favorite watering hole of the local bees. For whatever reason, SoCal bees are not aggressive, so I didn't mind the 20+ bees constantly filling up while standing on my floating plants.
I did end up buying daphnia and moina online since they never colonized the ponds naturally.
I also had a couple "pond jars" to maintain the daphnia/moina population. Those regularly attracted mosquito larvae which ended up as food for the medaka as well as my indoor aquarium fish. I figured the jars were a form of mosquito control since the larvae never reached adulthood.
I initially topped off the ponds with 0ppm, deionized water that I used for my indoor aquarium(I ran a hippie tank with 0 water changes so I needed pure water to top-off). Eventually I switched to using a filter housing filled with "catalytic carbon" which supposedly handles both chlorine and chloramines. I was scooping out enough floating plants regularly to balance the incoming minerals from the tap water used to top it off.
I'd do it again at some point when my daughter is old enough to appreciate it. But next time I'll use some protection against critters digging up things. One nice companion to all of this is a $300 chinese microscope. It's fun to see the pond life under magnification.