Purchasing your first fish is a very exciting time after all the hard work of building your new garden pond, but there are a few things you need to bear in mind. Try to buy from local aquatic outlets, this will minimize the fishes transport time and the water quality they are used to will be very similar or the same as yours. Look for alert fish that are lively with intact, erect fins and clear eyes.

Any with spots or growths should be rejected, as should any apparently healthy fish in a tank with dead or sickly looking ones.

When you have picked your fish get them home as quickly as possible and float them in their plastic bags for about 30 mins, out of direct sunlight. Then open the bag and mix in a little of the pondwater and release them. Don’t expect to see them for a while, they will be very timid at first!

Mid-March to July is the best time of year to introduce new fish, giving them plenty of time to settle in and put on weight before the onset of winter. During the winter the fish enter a dormant state and stay near the bottom of the pond where it is warmest and feed only occasionally. As a general rule of thumb allow approx 2sq feet of surface area to every 6” of fish, bearing in mind the eventual size they can achieve.

For small to medium size ponds the Goldfish, in its many guises ie.Shubunkins, Sarasa Comets, Red/Yellow Comets is the ideal pond fish choice. Hardy and relatively inexpensive, they will happily live in a well balanced pond with no filter or moving water.
For medium to large ponds Koi Carp and Golden Orfe are a fantastic choice, a shoal of adult (12-14”) Golden Orfe lazily cruising a large pond on a summers day is a sight you will not forget. Koi Carp come in a vast amount of different colours and patterns, grow rapidly and can be very endearing as they become more tame and even feed from your fingers! Both these types of fish really need a pond filter and open moving water to thrive, especially orfe which need well oxygenated water.