I have to agree with you that goldfish are rather overrated when compared to other stunning species in the hobby.
I have a few ideas for stocking but I would recommend that you find some fish that you like and doing your homework on the fish you would like to keep. With that in mind, here are some ideas:
For the tank: (Do your research, some of these can’t be mixed it have special requirements)
- 1 Mbu Puffer and Guppies for tank mates. I recommend lots of live plants
- Hundreds of Neon or Cardinal tetras and A few Golden Rams for Color. Watching large amounts of schooling fish navigate a large tank is very mesmerizing.
- Arowanas: Be very careful with this fish and do lots of research to make sure it’s specific type is legal to keep in your area. However these are active and amazing fish if you are allowed to keep them.
- A large school of any schooling fish. Tiger barbs are a great option, but any tetra, danio, or barb will be very interesting.
- Large cichlids are another great option
- Discus are beautiful, but are one of the hardest fish to keep so you’ll need to be very dedicated to them if you want to keep them.
For the Pond: (I don’t have very much knowledge of ponds, but unless you live somewhere where it is hot year-round, you will either need to heat the tank or drain it and keep the fish indoors during the winter.)
- Koi are a very common and easy fish to keep in ponds. They are bred in many variations and colors, which can be fun to mix. However, I wouldn’t keep these if you were looking for something unique
- Red eared slider turtles are super fun to keep. Make sure that they have somewhere to bask in the sun. These can be mixed with koi if desired.
I hope this was helpful. Good luck!