When is comes to keeping your goldfish outdoors, there are a few things you need to know about keeping the outside environment clean and sanitary for your fish. If you are planning to keep your goldfish outdoors, then you've made a good decision as most goldfish have the potential to grow larger and live for longer in a pond environment.

Just because you keep your goldfish outdoors, doesn't mean that you can just leave them there and forget about them! You will have to feed and care for them just as you would do if they were in an aquarium inside your house. Here's what you have to do:

Keeping A Healthy Environment

- Firstly make sure you check on a weekly basis the pond water's pH, ammonia and nitrite levels. Try to keep the pH as close to 7 as possible.

- Tank or pond, you will need to change the water. Make sure that you do a partial water change of your pond every month. Remove 20% of the water on a monthly basis so that the goldfish get a supply of fresh water. It's best to use a water siphon to suck out the residue on the bottom of the pond. This will help to remove bad bacteria that breed on the bottom of the pond which sometimes can have a lethal effect on your goldfish.

- Make sure that there are plenty of freshwater plants so that your goldfish have the opportunity to shield themselves from birds but mostly from the sun, which has the potential to cause damage to your goldfish's exterior. They also act as natural filters, helping to remove bad bacteria. Goldfish tend to live well with cannas, water lettuce, nymphaeas, sedges, and water lilies in the pond.

- Beware of overfeeding! If your pool has a lot of plants, you might not need to feed the goldfish at all. Avoid overfeeding; as you will not only endanger your fish, but you could also pollute the pond with the uneaten morsels.

- Make sure that the water temperature does not rise above 75 degrees F.

Is it good to keep other fish in the pond with goldfish?

Koi are another popular choice of fish to house in with Goldfish, but their needs are far different. Koi tend to eat a lot more that most breeds of goldfish, therefore you may find a lot of the plants to add to the pond could be consumed within a short period of time. Koi also need a pond much deeper than goldfish.