Hi all, I'm new here, and will try to get to the intro soon. I've kept tropical fish for years, but this will be my first try with goldfish. This is a REALLY great site. I have a question now though.

I have a goldfish pond I have built. It's about 200 gallons (6x3.5 feet) I have a DIY canister filter I made from a 5 gallon bucket and a power head. The power head is 300 gallons per hour, and it has foam filter material, mesh to catch big particles, and carbon for any pollutants that might get in the water. As well as lava rock for bio media.

And I have another power head that I am using strictly to agitate the surface of the pond for oxygen. It's about 2 feet deep, a little deeper in places. I plan to use an aquarium heater in the winter, if needed. I live in southern Georgia.

My question is how many Shubunkins can I put in there? I read they like to be in groups, but I know I don't have room for too many of them.

Thanks so much!

Hi blue555

welcome to the forum, but I think you will get more replies if you post your questions in the "Ponds and Garden" part of this forum, because there are more people on who know about ponds.

In this part we deal more with aquarium inside, 
This does not mean that some people here don't know, but I believe you get MORE info if you post in "Ponds and Garden"

Hope this helps for now too, and have fun with your new hobby and if you like you can keep us updatet from time to time too 

I guess that in 200 gallons you could fit about 19 fish, if using the rule of thumb that the first fish needs 20 gallons and then adding 10 for each additional fish (: But I think it could be better to keep a few less there, like 10-15, just so that they would have enough space to move! Since Shubunkins are more like common goldies they enjoy having lots of space for swimming (:
And I think your filter could handle this amount of fish with no problem!

One more thing, I read that when stocking ponds you rather count the surface area and the size of the fish! So a pond without filtration (not the case for you, so you could add a few more fish) you should keep 2 inches of fish per 1 square foot of surface area. Hope it helped at least a bit (: If all else fails you could try checking it up yourself in a book about pond fish!