Hi Brendan!

Welcome to rec.ponds.
I'm going to ask you some questions and that will help us get you and your pond
up and running.

- Where abouts do you live? general area is fine.

- About how big is the pond, length by width and how deep? Or better yet, did
the former owner say how many gallons it is?

- About how big are the 4 or 5 fish, in inches?

- Does the pond have a fountain or waterfall?

- Does it have any sort of filter? This would be a box or large container
filled with foam pads, brushes, small balls, stuff like that.

- Are there any plants in the pond? If so, what do they look like? In the pond
garden plants are either 1) completely underwater 2) floating on the top of the
water like lily pads 3) growing on the margins of the pond with most of the
plant above the water.

First off I would go to a large pet store that sells fish and buy
- a pond test kit
- some water treatment that treats chlorine and chloramines. - a good quality
koi food.

You can add water to the pond if you add the recommended amount of the
treatment product. Add it as you add the water, run the water in slowly over
the waterfall if you have one. Stay with the pond while you do this, don't
leave the hose running as forgetting the hose in the pond has killed a lot of
fish. Chlorine and chloramines will kill the fish without the water treatment
product.

Read the directions that come with the pond test kit. And then you can report
the results here.

Feed the fish sparingly. Only as much as they can eat in five minutes. Net up
the uneaten food.

Read the algae primer site in my signature. You don't have to do everything
listed right away but it will give you a good idea how algae gets out of
control in a garden pond.

kathy :-)
algae primer
http://hometown.aol.com/ka30p/myhomepage/garden.html