Outdoor Aquarium

[fisch]

Has anybody kept an outdoor aquarium?
I'm toying with the idea of setting one up for the summer. I'd probably go with a 10-20 gallon open top with live plants. I have a lot of shaded area so I should be okay with algae. I'll set a bucket of water out to monitor the temp. It does get pretty hot where I live (100°+). The area I'm thinking is much cooler. Probably closer to 80°.
Haven't thought too much about livestock. Probably some shrimp.
I don't think I'll go with a heater and let the plants do the filtering.
Any thoughts or suggestions welcome.

 

[brutus]

I only seen one on here the guy lived in the philippines .He had a algae problem it looked like.Would be nice to try. Might turn into a bird bath though.

 

[Rikesh]

Algae and dragonfly larvae should be considered.. Cover your aquarium if you dont want dragonfly to lay eggs. As for algae, its quite a good thing(except its ugly)

 

[joy13]

You could also use floaters to keep some of the algae down. Something that really gets big like water lettuce. Rikesh is right about the dragonfly problem since the nymph stage can kill fish.

 

[Rikesh]

As for these "floaters", I use salvinia for my cement ponds. But it does fairly in glass tanks. You'll still need to trim algae manually from time to time.

 

[Rikesh]

As it would be open top, u can use some plants such as lucky bamboo(dracaena sanderiana)

 

[fisch]

Thanks for the warning on the dragonfly larvae. I have never seen dragonflys in my back yard, but then again I've never had a bunch of water either.
I purchase a 20 gallon long so I'll be setting it up in the next few weeks.

 

[beglely]

Ive been debating setting up a small tank in my backyard to raise fry and plants in as I have some spare equipment lying around. I would just keep it covered to avoid breeding unwanted insects, esp. mosquitos

 

[mgamer20o0]

you should be more worried about mosquito then dragonfly. i have a big out side bin i breed livebearers in. remember the bigger the tank the more stable the water temps will be. i would try to keep it out of direct sun light as much as possible.

 

[Rikesh]

mosquitoes are free food. I don't think the larvae will turn into mosquitoes successfully unless there is only fry in the tank. In that case, dragonfly larvae is an absolute threat.