108 Litre "Puddle Garden" Outdoor Balcony Pond

[Aventador]

Our local sunlight is indeed powerful... did you use a glass tank or a tub tank for your balcony setup?

Glass tank with oyama, except front and bottom glass, I'm thinking of covering the front as well.

the key to solving is controlling how much sun gets thru.

via usage of floating plants, mesh net covers or oyama to restrict exposure to sun.

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Ya, I'm still fine tuning the position of the tank... haha... planted some frogbits but melted completely within first 2 weeks... mesh net is a good idea, need to tackle the algae problem first before adding some more plants...

[AQMS]

Interesting design, is it positioned so that the pump draws water from the top and pushes it down through the sponges and bio-media, and then exit below?

Just curious, are you also using a solar panel to recharge your lithium battery? Or manually recharging the batteries separately?

Yes, the pump draws water from the top and pushes down through the sponges and bio-media and exit below,you can also do it the other way round,
the pump draws water from the bottom and push it upward through the sponges and bio-media. Before this setup i actually use a hang on filter and retro fit
the solar pump to the hang on filter,i don't have any pictures on that.
At first i did use the solar panel to charge the battery but it took like forever to get it fully charged..now i do it manually.

[felix_fx2]

Ya, I'm still fine tuning the position of the tank... haha... planted some frogbits but melted completely within first 2 weeks... mesh net is a good idea, need to tackle the algae problem first before adding some more plants...

All my outdoor tanks have algae to certain extent, better to have limited amount so if it bloom suddenly you know something not balanced.

Teo farm is using mesh net in certain parts to lower the intensity of light.

[Urban Aquaria]

Glass tank with oyama, except front and bottom glass, I'm thinking of covering the front as well.

Yeah, i guess when there are exposed sides for sunlight to shine into the tank, it increases the areas which algae can receive light and grow too.

Before this setup i actually use a hang on filter and retro fit
the solar pump to the hang on filter...

Interesting idea, that makes it work sort of like a GEX slim filter, with the impeller mounted at the intake pipe to push water up (rather than within the filter itself to pull water in).

[hyperoko]

Very nice


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[Urban Aquaria]

Its been around 2 weeks since my initial post, all the plants have grown fast and filled in very quickly within that time.

Its now starting to become more like looking down into a dense forest canopy...



The Hygrophila Difformis and Ludwigia Repens bunches have grown so much that they now fill substantial sections of the base area.

Bacopa Caroliniana have started to develop a reddish hue on its new leaves, most likely in response to ample sunlight.

Limnobium Laevigatum (aka frogbits) keep growing fast enough that i have to remove a portion every few days, or else they'll start to cover too much of the surface and shade the other plants.

Cyperus Haspan continue shooting long stems upwards, we'll have to see at which point they start to develop their characteristic emersed mop head of flowers.

Got abit bored with not being able to observe much of the Boraras Brigittae, as they are very small and slim fishes, when viewed from above i could only seeing tiny shadows moving around, not very interesting... they are much nicer to view in an aquarium instead, so i shifted them back to my planted tanks.

After much deliberation, i decided to just go ahead and get some Xiphophorus Helleri var. Koi Sanke (aka Koi Sanke Swordtails)...



These fishes have vibrant colors with nice koi sanke style body patterns, and they look superb when viewed from above.



Due to their larger size (compared to Boraras Brigittae), i'll have to do more regular water changes to maintain water quality and hopefully the established dense plant mass can help handle and process the increased bio-load too.

After an extended period of drip acclimatization, i introduced them into the container pond.



I guess for those without the space for large ponds to house real Koi fishes... these specially bred Swordtails could be an interesting alternative.

[Kiang]

One word!!

Great!


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[erwinx]

are there fibreglass tanks with transparent viewing windows on the side? or is the only option the one that was mentioned in this thread, to use glass tanks and oyama paper....

[Urban Aquaria]

are there fibreglass tanks with transparent viewing windows on the side? or is the only option the one that was mentioned in this thread, to use glass tanks and oyama paper....

I've seen those before at some of the larger LFS before... they are usually much taller around 2-3ft height and have a large clear panel across the side. Mainly designed to house large fishes.

Something like this:



Photo from Google Images.

I guess for these sort of tanks, unless it placed on a raised platform, you'll have to get on your hands and knees to view the fishes though.

[Urban Aquaria]

Just to add on... i was actually looking at this water feature setup a while back too, lots of style (but price also very "nice"):



Product Link: http://www.gardensingapore.com/garden_fountain_proddetails.asp?prod=WFF001

Its not a fiberglass tank, but instead uses a flexible pond liner inside a frame structure, with rattan panels covering all sides.

Maybe if i can convince my better half to look into getting some "additional" balcony furniture... hmmm.

[Ingen]

Your work is impressive and detailed as always.

The garden water feature looks very interesting.

[Aventador]

The swordtails look good... so does the progress of the plants... amazing to see no algae bloom for a non-filtered pool... good work bro :thumbup:

[dwong]

Lovely work there, I always thought that an open air setup like this would be a target for algae. Looks like you've got it handled well

Have you ever thought of adding some lighting to your setup? Underwater LED lamps could act as a nice backlight to your setup.

[Goththug]

lovely tank. Any updates?

[Urban Aquaria]

lovely tank. Any updates?

It has already been de-commissioned and sold away a few months ago (had to free up the balcony space for other fixtures), was nice while it lasted though. Hopefully i can get an opportunity (and more space) to do up another outdoor container garden project in the future.