Goldfish in pond/container - this is very long!

Question
QUESTION: How do I get better control the algae, use of various types of water in our circumstances, and keep my goldfish healthy and happy?  This is a very long unique situation.  If you don't want to read this I understand, I just need some help, and there are so many different variants involved.  I have had goldfish in an outside pond before, in a different unique location, and they, well 4 of them, lived for many years without a lot of interference from me, and grew to be very large - about 7-9 inches long!

Here is what I have:  1 18 gallon plastic container, in the ground with about just over 2 inches above ground with bricks supporting the sides that are above (there is a lip on the container that brick goes to).  I have a water pump rated for this size and depth that goes to a prebuilt fountain.  The fountain is about 3 feet tall with a 'well' that holds about 2 gals of water, and its own pump. The water from the fountain overflows back into the pond.  I have goldfish, about 12 in the pond.  The goldfish are just fish I purchased at 2 different times - the first time they were just 'feeder fish', small goldfish (they are now 2x's the size) - the second time goldfish were bigger, regular goldfish.  I live in a very hot and dry climate (western Mid-Arizona), it does rain on occasion.  Our water is very hard and not acceptable for drinking, our house water is water softened.  In  house also have a reverse osmosis setup for drinking water - so the very hard water goes to the softener, then through the osmosis.  Our outside water is the untreated very hard water, and is chlorine and whatever else treated.  We originally set up the pond and fountain with no fish, and kept the water running through the pumps with no treatments and the outside water in both.  After about 2 weeks, we added the first batch of fish, and after a few days lost about half, not a problem, we had 20 fish to begin with.  Because the pond and fountain are exposed to the very hot morning and early pre-noon sun we have an algae problem, but mainly in the fountain, because the water tends to be warmer there.  I clean the fountain regularly and used algae treatments there per instructions.  The pond water stays at an optimum cooler level because of being below ground.  Recently I have been adding ice to fountain water well every other day, that seems to block the algae a little bit better.  I added 10 additional larger goldfish about 2 weeks later, didn't lose any of those - until we had a flooding storm and the pond overflowed and we lost a few more of the smaller fish - we have about 12 fish now.  They are all growing very fast, and eat very well, and seem to be very active - in fact they seem to respond and come to 'visit' when I got out there and watch them and talk to them.  I started checking the water with the test strips - most everything seems to be OK, with the exception of the pH levels, they are very high, and the hard is very hard.  One affects the other.  Recently I when I cleaned the fountain, removing the small rocks and nasty layer of algae, I used the house drinking water.  (The ice is also the house drinking water - softened and run thru osmosis).  Before we add more water from outside, which comes from the hose, it goes in a bucket to set and get to outside temperature (in the later afternoon and the area is now shady - but still very warm - over 100 degrees).  The pond itself doesn't have much algae in it, very little in fact, it has no rocks or gravel, when the winds blows dirt and other plant matter goes in there - but we try to get the plant matter cleared out.  


ANSWER: Hi Rona,
Thanx for your question.  The short and sweet answer to an algae problem is barley bales.  You can find these at most garden centers that have ornamental pond specialties.  Some tropical fish stores will sell them too.  I'm sure in Phoenix, Tucson and Yuma there are stores that can accommodate you on this.  You can buy bales about the size of a brick and if this is still too large, cut it in half and put it inside a jelly bag and then sink it in the pond.  The barley straw has chemicals in it that are harmless to fish which naturally restrict the growth of algae.  I hope this helps.
Tom

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Second part - Do I need to add additional pond chemicals to lower the ph and/or change the hard water or can I use the salt water or the reverse osmosis water?  Thanks for the info on the barley bales I will do that right away.

Answer
Hi Rona,
Thanx for the additional information.  I lived in Phoenix in the late 70s and I know how hard water can be in the Western U.S.  I live in Kansas City now (my hometown) and we have incredibly hard water here too.  Goldfish are pretty tough customers.  Unless they appear to be stressed, I would let everything be.  Let me pose another suggestion.  Use a rain barrel. I know you don't get a lot of rain (what, less than 8 inches per year probably?) but you can use a rain barrel and store the water and use that water to cut the alkalinity of your well water.  I don't know much about water softening systems other than if you are using salts to soften the water, you definitely don't want to expose your fish to this.  I didn't think we were supposed to drink soft water.  My brother has a water softening system in his home that uses salts and we use the filtered water for drinking.  Now osmosis, I know the biological term, as long as the water comes through the process of osmosis without picking up extra salts or minerals, that would be fine.  I hope this helps.
Tom