Fish (etc) for small pond

The aquatic world is an alien universe to me. Its the males that come into season?

I once heard (but have not researched to verify) that some types of fish will go through a gender change in order to breed if there are too many of either gender.

 

Be careful not to introduce too many fish too soon, you need to allow the ammonia, nitrite, nitrate cycle to establish,(new pond syndrome).

 

Clueless1, when I say come into 'season' I mean when it's the time of year to breed.
So around now haha!

If you can see this thread, http://forum.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/showthread.php?t=74323
Then that will show a few examples of poorly fish being kept in too small ponds. All of the top examples of that page were single tailed comets/commons, therefore should NEVER have been kept in tanks as they were made for ponds like your lovely fish.
If you can see this photo, this is one of those fish, Howie, won from a fair. Inside that tank is the honest-to-god tank given with him when he was small to live in. As you can see, he's far too big for that tank, and Howie himself you should see is not a normal 'healthy' fish anyway, despite his large size.

If you can also see this thread, even though they are 'fancy' goldfish and not pond fish, you can see the size these fish (that were bred for aquariums) grow to - and they aren't even pond fish!
http://forum.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/showthread.php?t=76428

I have become a complete goldfish lover, and my poor pond fish are temporarily in a 200litre tank awaiting their new big pond in a month or so. They are happy and healthy, but may not grow to their potential after spending the winter indoors (my goldie lost his tail and nearly died just before winter). When they go out to a pond I will be getting three fancy goldfish for my indoor 200 litre tank.
These are my 3 young pondies:
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a122/bethicus/Coldwater Fish Tank/P1020715_zps400a522d.jpg

 

Those poor fish in the second link (I couldn't see the pics in the first link). There's no danger of my fish being that cramped. Even though my pond is small for a pond, it is still a good size. I estimated my pond capacity to be well in excess of 1000 litres and that's a conservative estimate. Also there are plenty of rocks in there and the fish seem to enjoy exploring in between them, so they've got plenty of room and plenty to keep them occupied.

 

Yes, it was just to demonstrate that the old wives tale of "its ok, fish only grow to the size needed" isn't quite totally truthful and a bit misleading. Surprisingly, goldfish need a lot of space, even the fancy versions (which need less than single tailed pond fish) which i don't think people realize.
But hopefully the more people are educated, the better this will become for goldfish generally

 

8 fish is probably enough for my pond anyway. Before I started to become addicted to watching the fish, my main reason for putting any in there was just so that my pond was actually a pond and not just a container of water, and also to ensure that the container of water didn't become a mosquito city.

I need to be careful not to lose sight of my objective. I'm hoping that frogs will move in, and even better still if dragon flies turn up too. Too many fish, and if I understand correctly any frog spawn will get eaten before the tadpoles even emerge, and dragonfly larvae would be eaten too. No fish and the mozzies will just move in en-masse. So I reckon the 8 fish that are in there now will be enough for the foreseeable future.

 

Good plan. If you have some shelves for plants that is a good place to pop maybe some larger stones - that way the tadpoles have some place to survive and hide from some hungry fishies!