Sucking Catfish in Goldfish pond good or bad?

[AngusP]

Hi all,

A few months ago I set up a pond for Goldfish in my backyard, I currently have 4 goldfish in the pond and recently noticed a lot of algae and plant matter building up around the sides and bottom of the pond. I had the idea to get 2 sucking catfish to help keep this algae in control. After adding them to the pond I noticed the goldfish were showing a lot of interest in them and I'm a little worried that they might not get along too well.

Is it a bad idea to mix these 2 types of fish in the same pond or will they eventually just leave each other alone?

 

[Autumnsky]

Hello and welcome.

What size / gallons (or liters) is your pond?

What kind of goldfish and are the catfish a type of Plecostomus?

Also is the pond going to freeze up / what are the coldest temperatures you have? Need a bit more information to know what to tell you.

 

[AngusP]

Thanks for your quick response,

The pond is built in a half wine barrel so is about 260L.

I believe 3 of the goldfish are just regular Comets and I think the 4th is a Shubunkin. The Comets would be no more than 8cm and the Shubunkin is roughly 13cm. The catfish were just called Sucking Catfish when we bought them. The catfish are tiny and i would estimate them to be around 3 or 4cm.

I live in Australia so there is no chance of freezing, the lowest temperatures we would get in winter would be no less than 5C and in summer it can reach up to 40C usually.

I hope they shouldn't be too much of a problem because the catfish are very fast and there is almost no chance i could catch them to remove them.