This was another bonus to the house. I love fish. I had fish for as long as I can remember. When I left Davis, California I gave away my fish to a nice gal that would email me photos and fish updates. In San Diego I only had fish in the horse water trough. I knew I wanted fish again in Italy.
Luca would not have been excited about getting fish so soon after moving. Lucky for me our new Italy house came with fish in an outdoor pond!
The pond has about 10 goldfish and a handful of little grey fish that might be mosquito fish. It also has two rock structures and a small fountain we can turn on and off. The previous owners also left us some fish food.
What to do with a pond…
I had only had fish tanks and horse water tank fish. Never an outdoor pond. We were told to feed them but not too much, clean them, and remember to add water.
All the water comes out
To clean the pond we took the fish out, took all the water out, swept out the muck, refilled the pond, and returned the fish. We learned at the end (after bucketing out almost all the water by hand) that we could create a syphon and suck all the water out of the pond with ease. After hours of work, we celebrated our clean pond with a drink, charcuterie, and fresh tomatoes.
But the pond quickly got dirty again. I started doing 20% water changes every week and trying to scoop it daily. This was not really helping.
After some internet research I decided we need a filter.
The filter
We got a filter! It is large and should be able to handle the pond and the fish. During my research I learned that if you have fish you need to double the capacity of your pump. So I got a pump that could do 3000 liters of water. The SunSun CPF-2500T with a UV light.
Luca spliced up the existing electrical system and put in the new pump. We had to wait about a month to turn the UV light on so that the filter can grow some good stuff before the UV starts.
Once the pond is filtered nicely will get some pond plants and our little aquatic atmosphere will be complete
