A water garden pond, when left to its own devices, actually acts as a miniaturized nature reserve but in order to make it look more attractive it is always a good idea to stock some ornamental fish in it as well as add some nice plants. With a proper blend of fish and plants you can create an excellent water garden fish pond that will be self-sustaining and which will only require occasional maintenance in order to keep the pond going.

Add Plants First

If your water garden fish pond is also going to hold plants then make sure that you first add the plants to the pond and only then introduce the fish and the fish that you add must be sourced from reputable stores so as to ensure that you only introduce healthy fish that will then flourish in your water garden fish pond.


The Goldfish, a humble fish that has been bred by Japanese and Chinese fish-keepers are a dullish brown species of fish and also the most common type of fish that is also included in virtually every water garden fish pond. However, there are more than one hundred different varieties of the Goldfish including the excellent Comet with a long tail and the Common Goldfish and also the colorful Shubunkins. The Goldfish is a hardy fish species that will survive extremely cold weather conditions and the Comet and Common Goldfish as too the London Shubunkin is especially a hardy variety of the Goldfish that will survive all kinds of conditions.

You can also populate your water garden fish pond with Tench and Golden Orfe that too are wonderful fish species with the former being a bottom feeder that means that they will scavenge food that is leftovers from what other fish did not consume; this feature makes the Tench a good fish species as it ensures keeping the pond cleaner.

The Golden Orfe has wonderful black and gold markings and is an active feeder that takes their food from the surface of the pond and is very attractive to look at and so makes for a wonderful display fish. It is however of a large size and so will not be suitable for small sized water garden fish ponds.

When it concerns buying fish for a garden pond the general rule is that you must always buy from a reputable source and even then inspect the fish in their ponds to ensure that they are healthy. Then, after buying the fish you must transport them in plastic bags that have been partially filled with water and then the plastic bags must be placed in cardboard boxes.