So this post is a long one…mostly pictures, but I just couldn’t help myself. I am so excited about having a fish pond in our backyard, even if it is just a cattle stock tank!  So you may be wondering what goldfish have to do with honeybees, but the truth is, it’s a bit of a symbiotic relationship (ok, that might be an overstatement!?). Honeybees need water, and if you have a pond you need goldfish to keep the mosquito larva away. See there…we just had to buy goldfish for our honeybees!

So it started out with a trip to Wilco where we picked up a six foot cattle stock tank. We then started to prep the area where the tank was going. We raked back the bard dust, tried to level the soil, and ultimately used a bag of sand to get things leveled.

And then all the bark dust went right back around the stock tank. It really is important to get the stock tank level because you’re going to be filling it with water; once filled with water, it becomes very obvious if you got the tank level (take my word for it!).

And if you’re going to have a stock pond to “water the bees” you might as well fill it with pond plants and make it pretty right? The two tall plans are an Umbrella Palm, and a Canna Taney (the pink flowers). I also bought a water lily and some water hyacinth for the bees to land on and drink water.

Once the stock tank was in place it was time to fill it with water and add some water features i.e concrete blocks…for the fish. The Renaissance Man had some extra concrete blocks from a previous backyard project, so we use them to create some interest within the pond. We also used them in order to get the correct elevation for the different water plants.

The Renaissance Man had a blast “thinking like a fish” and arranging the concrete block in a way that the fish could swim around between the holes and hide for protection. We don’t anticipate the fish needing protection, but you never know what kind of creatures might stumble into your pond.

And here it is…fish pond stock tank almost complete! You’ll notice that we moved some yard art over to this area…The Renaissance Man bought me that pagoda for my birthday last November, and I’m happy we finally found a good home for it in our yard. It looks perfect!

Once we had all the plants and blocks situated in the pond it was time to go back to Dundee Garden Art to buy some fish! Talk about convenience, this place is right at the bottom of the hill and easy to access off of Highway 99W. They have tons of yard art, pond supplies, fish, fountains, and bird supplies.

Recognize any of these pagodas below? I wonder where The Renaissance Man picked out my pagoda last November…ha!

Behind the store is where all of the water plants and fish are kept along with supplies for fountains.

They keep both koi fish and goldfish in stock all the time!

After talking with the super friendly and helpful people about our pond and what we were looking for, they pointed us in the direction of goldfish. Goldfish are hearty, much more affordable than Koi, and are a good starter fish until you decide you’re ready to upgrade. Given the size of our pond they recommended buying six fish. So we bought four regular goldfish and two fancy tale goldfish.

The fancy tale goldfish are my favorite! They were so excited to check out their new digs!

Here they go sliding into the pond!

Watching fish swim around is mesmerizing, we probably watched them swim for at least a half hour. They checked out all of the voids in the concrete. The Renaissance Man made a few adjustment, but overall was happy with the layout of the pond.

I’m happy to report that we’ve had the pond for a few weeks now and that everything is running smoothly. I feed the goldfish about once a day and we still have all six! The honeybees are also actively using the lily pads and water hyacinths to land on and drink water. This project was a total win-win!