Question
Hi!

I recently landscaped a small area for my Grandfather into a Japanese garden for him to enjoy. I decided to add a Shishi Odoshi (Deer Chaser) water fountain that empties into a tiny 14x20x5 inch pond liner, lined with gravel and a few small colored rocks.

Would it be possible to sustain any fish, tadpoles, or water plants in the pond, despite it's small size? The fountain is solar powered, so it shuts off at night. I also live in Sacramento, CA, so the weather can be hot in the summer, but it doesen't typically get too freezing in the winter. I'm inexperienced in small ponds so I'm unfamiliar with any species that could survive in such a small pond. Do I have any options here?

Thanks!

Answer
I assume those measurements are in inches?  If they were in feet, that would be a nice 10,000 gallon pond!  Since they're in inches, it's only 6 gallons.  That really isn't enough to hold more than a few tiny fish (less than 6) like maybe a few guppies in the summer or mosquito fish or rosy red minnows most of the year.  If the pond freezes, then any fish would have to come indoors for the winter.  The pond might be able to hold a tadpole or two.  It could certainly hold a few small water plants like a sprig of anacharis, maybe some floating heart, and so on.  You are pretty limited due to lack of space.

Plants (including algae) create oxygen during the day but use it at night.  That means that aeration and water movement are actually more important at night than during the day for any aquatic animals.  Being that the pond is so small, it probably doesn't make much difference.  If you add plants and animals, you can expect that the solar pump may clog up more quickly.  My solar pump basically became useless as it only works in bright, full sun directly on the panel and barely drizzles now that it was in a pond for a while.  It's not really clogged, just gave up I guess.

The solar pump runs the deer chaser?  Did they come together?

Since the pond is so small and with the moving water from the deer chaser, you'll need to top it off practically daily in the heat of summer.

Good luck!