Jurapari/other eartheaters in outdoor pond??

[cpiefer]

Not really new here, but rarely post. I have a small 500 gal "L" shaped pond fed by a waterfall in my atrium. It was built to be a koi pond but is really only good for smaller fish. For the last few years I have been experimenting with various tropical fish to see who survives winter/summer here, but have loved the thought of seeing a sparkling jurapari or two from the top. I think they might be gorgeous, but wouldn't want to put them in a bad situation. Any thoughts? Are their other colorful cichlids which might be appropriate?

[76dragon]

For those 1 or 2 cold winter nights.I can only gurantee Koi will survive. I have seen many Plecos and cichlids stop moving and start floating to the top.

[cpiefer]

True, I have lost plecos in the pond too. Other things have surprized me - giant danios (survived 2-3 winters now), well danios in general, gold barbs, odessa barbs, glass barbs, rosy barbs, swordtail, and 1 unique gold buenos aries tetra who unfortunately succumed when I left the filler on and clorinated the pond. That's the only tetra to survive a winter so far (actually two winters). So I would suspect some other SA fish might also be cold hardy.

Other things were supposed to be cold hardy and weren't paradise fish, guppies, plattys, etc.

[TaTeR ToT]

pretty much the only fish that can survive our winters are goldfish and koi, geos need much warmer temps, and are very suseptible to ich and hlle (head and lateral line erosion) so a pond is not a good idea.
however, the gymnogeophagus, ie; meridianalis, balzanii, gymnogynis, blue neon, ect.
do very well in lower temps, they can easilly handle temps from 62-80f, but not lower and not higher than stated.
they will need a heated pond in the winter, but if kept at ~65 all winter, they will be fine.
they come from the lower countries in south america, and thus do well in semi-coldwater environments. they do require good water quality however, so a good filter is neccessary, also, they are sifters, and gravel and coarse substrates will eventually kill them do to tearing up the gill mebranes which are used to seperate organics from the sand, so a smooth sandy botton is needed like for any eartheater.
or no substrate at all, but they will be much happier with ~4-5 bags of leslies pool filter sand to sift.
hope this helps.