Goose

Been thinking about putting one in. Not sure if I want to put it outside, or build one inside the back enclosed patio. How much of a pain are they to keep up? Is it as much of a hassle as a regular fish tank, or is there less maintenance?

JonGTR

It's about the same. But just like an aquarium, it all depends on how much you invest. A good filtration system will do wonders. Also, the larger the size helps to keep things stable.

One problem I found though was that cats and birds will catch the fish. I'm really not sure which, I'm just assuming that was what was eating them. But I did get a "Scarecrow" which is a water supplied sprinkler on a motion sensor. It goes off for a split second when it senses a lifeform and scares them away.
You can also drop the water level from the surface.

Also, don't put it under a tree that drops a lot of leaves.

Stocker

We had a 720gal. pond in the backyard in Houston when I was a yout'. It had a huge (swimming pool) sand filter, plus a couple of bio filters for the chemicals in t3h poop, plus a few plants. The main thing we had to do was clean the bio filters and feed the fish. We kept the water level down a few inches from the top, but the stupid fish would sometimes still jump out especially during storms. A couple tried to spawn upstream in the water return and jumped out that way.

These fish started out as "big enough they couldn't turn around easily in a 50 gallon tank" size, so there was really no problem with anything trying to eat them.

Bonus: we got some 'feeder' goldfish to see if the pond was viable, and just left them in. They ended up 6"+ long with beautiful golden orange scales and white spots. . . . looked like mini koi.

JonGTR

They ARE mini koi. They're both of the carp species.

JohnWho

I've seen many of them, especially in this part of Florida (Sunken Gardens, St. Pete; Jungle Gardens, Sarasota; Marie Selby Gardens, Sarasota; and more)

and even downloaded the Free/demo Koi Pond Screensaver once, but didn't like it so much.

Maybe I'll get the one for the iPod\Touch\iPad - Koi Pond.

Dunno.