tropical pond in pretoria

[FOXLY]

Do you think a tropical pond would work in pta? My question is I suppose, mainly for the winter months as it does get rather chillos. Is there equipment that could keep an outdoor pond's temperature regular?

[Cheetah]

I'm not too far off Pretoria, and I have 5 outside ponds with tropicals and they all flourished throughout the winter.... All depends what you plan to keep in ém......

[FOXLY]

How about a Big pond with Big fish. i have a shark at the moment, he is tiny at the moment (one of my smallest) but it will get big along with another fish of mine, so Im looking into getting a very big tank. I was just thinking today how badly I'd like to put a big pond in my garden and was wondering if it would work for them

[Pistolshrimp]

Guys could try a mini solar heating option, take 20mm pvc and form a grid and spray it black and place that in the sun, feed it with a good flow depending on the size of the pond, if you couple the pump to a temp controller to switch on when needed you could warm the pond up quite a bit, i know my friend did this with his pool with 50mm pvc sprayed black, enabled winter swimming

[azurekoi]

Key to outside tropical ponds in colder areas are:
- Depth,the deeper,the better...shallow ponds dont have thermal holding capacity...they heat up fast in the day and crash cool at night...its not the chill that gets the fish,but rather the rapid change in Temp...
- Micro climate: The closer you can situate the pond to a house or protective wall,the better...overhead covering helps....

The PVC grid works,but here's a cheaper option...Big roll of 10mm(or whatever diameter fits your pump) poly irrigation pipe's much cheaper + has the advantage of fitting directly to most small pond pumps without fidly connections...
I know a guy in the Moot area who has an outside pond with huge clown knife,oscars and plecs innit - no heating - all he does in winter is to cover 3/4 of the pond surface with bubble wrap at night....All his fish survived this past(FREEZING!!!) winter...