Here is a story familiar to all ponders:

"First there was a shallow 50-gallon pond to hold a few Louisiana iris..."

...then one day friends dropped by with 4 extra goldfish from their pond. I put in a pump and filter and moved some of the plants out into a whiskey barrel liner.

Then, as winter was coming, and everyone said the pond was way too shallow to over-winter the fish, I set up a large aquarium in the kitchen, and there they lived, ate, splished and splashed, chased and snoozed all winter.
Mopping the floor for the zillionth time, I realized it was time to set them up outside in a bigger pond, for the future, winters included!

This is a 150 gallon Rubbermaid stock watering tank. It sat all winter waiting for the ground to thaw enough so that Preston could put his hole-digging skills to work. We leveled the soil with sand and rocks before we set the tub, leaving a couple inches of the tub exposed to prevent soil from washing in during heavy rains.
The side of the tub is visible here lower left corner. We saved the yucky sub-soil and I have been layering it into the compost heaps.
The photo below shows how Carex glauca is growing around the edge of the fish pond. It's a great grassy groundcover, and softens the edge while giving the fish some hiding places. Fish count is 4 goldfish, 1 yellow koi, 1 shebunkin. That's about all this 150 gallon tank can hold. Water hyacinth in bloom, chameleon plant, carex glauca.	Here are Iris pseudacorus, giant vertical variegated sedge (its leaves are hollow like a straw), and Louisiana iris. This pond has no fish.
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