"Tim Downie" wrote in message
...
I've got a small pond (about 570 L, 125 UK gal, 150 US gal) with 4
goldfish
(about 5-6" in length).

The pond hasn't been established very long (only a couple of months) but I
got a reasonable number of potted plants established along with water
hyacinths and duckweed to provide cover for the fish.

Water testing hasn't picked up any significant quantities of nitrate,
nitrite or ammonia but the pH is on the alkaline side (8). Whilst not
clear, the water is by no means opaque. I have a home made
bio/particulate
filter that does a fair job of removing algae but I don't think the bio
filter side of it hasn't been established long enough to really work well
yet.

This is the key part of your question. You can feed your goldfish every 17
minutes if you like, but you need proper filtration. I have heard for years
that fish will eat until they burst, so you can overfeed them, but in my
experience, my fish eat and then go away, often leaving food on the surface.
Anyway, back on topic, when you feed, the fish eat. When the fish eat, they
poop. When they poop the water gets dirty. As long as you take care of your
water, your fish will take care of themselves.

I'm currently feeding my fish with TertaPond floating food sticks that
they
seem to love and I'm ensuring that I'm not feeding them more than they can
eat in a few minutes. TetraPond recommend feeding 2-3 times a day and
they
have no problem putting away 2-3 sticks each 3 times a day. I suspect that
they could eat more.

I feed my fish only when the kids want to see them at the surface. In an
outdoor pond, there is plenty of "food" for them, so don't get hooked on the
fact that you HAVE to feed them.

So (deep breath), my question is, is this a reasonable rate of feeding for
a
new pond of my size? I'm sure the fish could eat more (and have done some
days when the children feed them) but I'm not sure whether a pond of my
size
could cope with the extra nitrogen input.

Just keep checking your numbers if you are concerned. It is the ONLY way to
answer this question accurately.

BV.