Aquascape AquaGarden Mini Pond Kit

I love this mini pond kit! I wanted something a little different than the standard fish tank. I also wanted a little pond so this was perfect. Assembly and instructions were straight forward without issue. The foam buffer is a bit tricky when taking it off to clean but I certainly wouldn’t steer away because of that. This pond is so cool because you can design it so many ways but it comes with what you need if you’d rather keep it basic. I added live plants and two platys that love it. I also added some baby snails and ceramic/charcoal rings to assist with filtration. Which hasn’t been an issue. The tank has stayed very clean for over a month now. I test the water daily (just for the first few weeks) and the numbers have been great. The pump is relatively quiet and the waterfall is soothing and relaxing. The light it comes with is very bright, overwhelmingly so at night. I changed it out for a light that changes colors to mimic the time of day. It’s so much nicer and I love the way I can change colors. The stock light is just a bright white. I’ve had zero issues with water splashing on the hardwood floors which has not been my experience with other water features. I didn’t order the stand because of reviews about rust but found a small heavy duty plant stand which I think will work great. This mini pond fits perfectly in my indoor area and I couldn’t be happier. I get so many compliments on it and enjoy relaxing next to the beautiful waterfall. The kit comes with plenty of rocks but I added some larger for decor. The strange brown substrate balls kept floating away no matter how many rocks I put on top of them. I ended up taking most of this out and not using. If I had a recommendation for aquascapes it would be to include a screen or something to weigh those down but my plants are doing amazing without them anyway. I strongly recommend this mini pond if you’re hesitating. I think you’ll be glad you got it. I sure was!!

OK. I never do reviews….EVER! You buy a light fixture, it’s a light fixture. You buy some tools, they’re tools. You buy a computer component it is a computer component. All are better or worse for what they do and you learn if they are crap (or not) then you move on in your own elated or disgusted silence. But this item. Well, this item is different. It’s an item that adds to the charm of your own private place. A back porch. A front porch. A deck….heck, even a living room or sun room...or any room if you’d like. It's an incredible purchase! Background: I drive a truck. I’m not home most of the week. I don’t have time to build a back porch pond. (though I could). I don’t have time to create a special outdoor place. (though I could). But I do what I can when I am able. I cut the grass. I fix light switches. I change oil. I do guy stuff on the weekends. So one day, to give my wife a nice area to work at home, I made a quickie outdoor fountain from a large planter to put on our back porch and it was “o k”...(my wife thought so), but it didn’t have the charm I was looking for. It was too deep and I had to make a custom hanger for the water plants. I installed a low pressure fountain but when the fountain was adjusted to attaine the soothing water sound we were looking for, it shot water all over the place. I thought….well, maybe I could make some kind of waterfall thingy. I toyed with ideas to build a wooden box with a liner. I toyed with an elaborate fountain….I toyed with all kinds of ideas….yeah, well….how long will that take to build? How about hiring a…...STOP!…..I’m not going to hire some designer to do what I could do….especially these days. But I was in a quandary. I don’t have the time and I needed something simple. I needed something quick. I needed something I don’t have to build…...I needed something with quality and my wife’s birthday is coming up and I want to give her a place she can chill…. So I shopped and shopped and ( from my phone….on a freight run….somewhere in Indiana)….BEHOLD! Enter this piece of kit! I recently took off work for half a week for other obligations and while I was off work, I ordered this. I selected next day shipping from Amazon and it was delivered post haste. I had it up and running in about 3 hours (before my wife came home from a seminar.) I surprised her with this….(with me grinning like a prom-dance kid)….aw...shucks! She loves it! I am content. Silly simple to install. Just follow the printed directions. I would imagine that if you have a level surface….(a concrete porch or slab or a level deck surface, you will be alright). But I wanted to elevate this a bit. In my case, I had a couple of oak tree trunk cross sections cut into 2-4 inch thickness and I used one as a base for the pond. I placed several 2×4 weather rated scraps under the oak cross section and used a ¼ plywood section on top of the oak slab to make a uniform base and shimmed where needed. The results are impeccable! I rinsed off the included stones then added them to the pond, then filled it a few inches and swirled the water around to stir up any sediment and debris, then used a scoop to throw out any water that looked cloudy. Refilled a few inches and repeat. Note: This is particularly important if you are adding water plants to the upper shelf! After placing the clay/growing media into the upper shelf, rinse the root balls of your plants until most, if not all, of the potting soil/growing media is gone. Then place them into the clay media that is provided and add the stones on top and run the pump. Scoop out any floating debris or dirty water that spills into the main basin, watch for more debris, scoop out, then fill to the level you feel best. I did buy the overhead LED lamp that is advertised in addition to this item. Frankly, my wife and I prefer it to the under waterfall LED that comes with the kit. To us, it adds an ambiance and effect that the provided led (under the fall) cannot provide...your experience may differ. Experiment! You can create a variety of environments with this wonderful piece of decor. I’ve seen everything from far-east mystic to quaint garden gnome hoopla to some pretty avaunt-garde stuff.….It’s yours to explore. But don’t go piling a bunch of rocks and crap on the waterfall shelf….it is plastic after all and will probably distort with too much weight. Experiment with it. A few creative and tasteful accents can bring this item to life. My wife and I dug out a couple decorations lying around in the basement and created our own simple scene. Frogs and turtles: Quaint. Country. Gods gift. BTW….Note how clean the water!… I ran this system for 24 hours before I took this picture The water level is actually just to the lower edge of the turtles shell...all of the legs are under water. Clean and clear! Buy this if you don’t have the the time to build the most awesome porch pond to impress your wife…..she'll love you , she'll give you kisses. She'll say you're wonderful and you'll then have more time to fix the light switch that broke 2 days ago.....

I set this pond up yesterday and put it on my deck. I also purchased the stand for it, and both were easy to assemble. It is so adorable, and I love listening to the waterfall!

If you want a small pond with rice fish or mosquitofish for your balcony or small patio, this pond does a great job. It is a great idea, and I absolutely love the waterfall noise. It is a good size for small areas. No leake , easy to assemble. Note on Fish: Please do not add goldfish—it’s cruel! One goldfish needs a minimum of 30 gallons of water to live. Just because they are hardy doesn’t mean they should suffer in a small space, and just because they look "okay" doesn’t mean it is the right thing to do. Instead, you can have rice fish or mosquitofish. They are small, hardy, and perfect mosquito larva eaters! 😁 Mosquitofish are often free; many cities and aquarium stores provide them at no cost. Just remember, if you get mosquitofish, do not add any other fish with them, as they are territorial and will eventually kill other fish. Note on Water: Using a mix of RO (Reverse Osmosis) water and treated tap water is the best thing you can do for the fish and plants in this pond. I already have Blue Daisy rice fish fry swimming in mine! Areas for Improvement: There are a few improvements the company needs to make: The Light: Having a single-color pond light without a timer is frustrating because it stays on day and night, which encourages algae blooms. I had to buy an extra timer plug just to control the light. It would be fantastic if the LED light had a built-in timer and multiple color options. Customer Service: Customer service responded to my email quickly, but the representative couldn't actually help me. They kept repeating the same troubleshooting steps for fixing a noisy pump, which I had already tried. Then, I kept getting automated emails saying I hadn't responded for three days, even though I actually had. In the end, I gave up, spent my own extra money, and fixed the problem by buying a new pump—which should have been provided by the seller! Customer service definitely needs improvement. I have been in the freshwater aquatic hobby for 7+ years and could handle it, but not everyone knows what to do when their pump is extremely noisy.

Ordered this for our small balcony 4 stories up just to bring some nature to us with plants and maybe some small ricefish to put in there, but after week 1, it seems to have attracted some tree frogs!! So cool especially since we are so high up idk how they found us. My only complaint/word of advice since I only skimmed the manual is don't use all of the leca, it will push past the black stone they give you and float right to the top, I had to empty the basin the first time to collect all the floating leca. And if you can find larger black stone at like a craft store I would go grab some and help use that to layer over the lec/growing medium as I think the initial black rock they give you is too small and seems to sink right through the cracks of the leca. Otherwise though the filter works great and the wildlife loves it!

I got this at an open box price and I still feel like it’s massively overpriced. It’s just cheap plastic. I set it up as intended at first and it’s just not great. Pro tip: If you place rocks of various sizes and shapes (not provided) along the spillway, you can get a far better waterfall sound. The light color is a very harsh blue color and far too bright. If it’s the tiniest bit off level, the water in the the upper portion falls backward and out of the vessel. It’s hard to describe the pump issue, but basically there’s only one way the pump can go in because of how it hooks to the upper bowl, and this means that if a small amount of water evaporates, the pump starts sucking air (not good). Compared that to my other fountain that I have to fill up maybe 6x a year if we’ve had a serious drought period. I’m filling this constantly. I really wish I had returned it, even though I got a deal on it. I’m going to take the components apart and use the top part as a spillway into a concrete trough I have, although I’m not sure yet how I’ll make the cheap plastic blend in. Maybe tile mosaic if I can figure out how to make sure it adheres. The bowl I’m going to use with a glazed ceramic sphere fountain I already had. I was going to use that with a basinless system, but the tree roots around my patio are insane, so this will be easier, but once again, I’m not sure how to work with the ugly plastic. I’ll look into some waterproof coatings and what I can get to stick to this with some bonding primer. Ugh. Wish I had just returned it!

Needed an indoor pond for my smaller fish that were outside for the summer. I saw this AquaGarden and decided to give it a try since the price was reasonable during Prime days and I decided not to set up a regular fish tank, trying instead to keep the pond feel. I must say, I love this versatile water feature. It is a good size at 24x24 wide and perfect for my needs in the house. It came in the manufacturers box, which was a little beat up during delivery but the pond and spillway were fine. My bowl did have a slight straight side (guessing they are stored on their side) but it is very slight and actually worked well for butting it up against a wall and you wouldn't know because that is where I put the spillway. My fish are loving their new winter home and get a constant flow of fresh water cascading down into the bowl creating lots of oxygen. Tips when setting up: -Rinse out the bowl and spillway before adding anything, mine had rock dust on it. -Set up the pump, light, and spillway and place the pond where you want it. Don't add any water until you set up the spillway completely the way you want it. (see below) -Wash all rocks that come with the pond thoroughly to prevent water clouding. Do the lava rock first. I had 3 colanders to wash each and keep separate until use. -IMPORTANT -When adding the lava rock in the spillway you may want to lay mesh over them - they are porous and float and find their way into the bowl below, even with the black rock over them!!! Believe you me, it's nearly impossible to put them back without dislodging others, so save your sanity. -Add any plants you want to the spillway before adding water and turning on the pump. I would say add plants when you do the lava rock and place the mesh down. You may have to cut slits in the mesh to insert them, then add the larger black rock to secure everything in place. Sounds like a pain but trust me its worth it. Wish the company would included some sort of mesh to cover the lava rock. I bought fine mesh bags at the dollar store and also used them to wrap around the water pump (secured with plastic twist tie) to make sure my fishy's didn't end up getting sucked into it like some people mentioned. If you have larger fish they should be fine. I have had zero issues and the mesh has stayed very clean and will be easy to clean or replace as needed. -The brown rock for the bowl is ok but makes everything dark in the already dark bowl, so I opted to use lighter colored rock, MOP chips and iridescent smooth glass to lighten everything up. -You can add rocks or the like to break up the flow of the spillway to create your own water sounds too. Lastly, I just happened to find an unused smaller pump and and grow light with a flexible head at the thrift store and figured I might as well buy them both, totaling $5 (score). The light sits on a counter next to the bowl and I can turn it on if needed. The pond is near a window, so during the day there is filtered light and it never hurts to stash away a spare pump. Overall, I am super pleased with this set-up. Even thought it's all plastic, it's very sturdy and should last indefinitely. No more broken glass or cracked pots. The plastic could be easily painted or decorated to suit your taste. Perhaps even sunk into a large decorative planter. Once you add all the plants and accessories you don't even notice the bowl. Fish are completely optional. I loved seeing all the reviews and the way everyone decorated their pond. Gave me great ideas. I added a separate fountain on the spillway for fun. The soothing water sound is so nice indoors. If you're on the fence, get off, and try this! -

We got this because one of our kids is really interested in lily ponds. This was perfect-an easy and beautiful water feature. Just be aware that it does not come with plants. We got some artificial aquarium plants and wound up not using the clay grow media. Love it!

I am very familiar with this company and all of their excellent products because they are one of the best. I used to build ponds with my husband and anything related to this company is going to be fabulous. I wanted to add something small to my sitting area in the back and it looked fabulous and worked so well. It has simple Elegance. I will be purchasing the stand for it as well as I sold the table that it was sitting on. I recommend this company and I recommend all their products. It's an easy setup and easy pump system and easy to take care of. You'll love the idea of adding your own plants, stones and rocks creating your own unique little Paradise that is different than the usual water features, and very classy. Again a quality product that you cannot go wrong with. You might spend a little bit more but it's well worth it in the end. So I definitely recommend this water feature, you can't go wrong. I guarantee it.

I absolutely love this product. Well made and looks sooo good. Easy to assemble.

The mini pond is easy to set up. I didn’t use the black pebbles. I used sand for the base and used the multi coloured pebbles for the top. I also fitted a spare grow light into the top section. I had some problems with the pump and light because we use a different voltage, and even with a transformer it was problematic, but that’s not the fault of the manufacturer. It was easy to retrofit my own pump into the socket and replace the light so overall I’m pretty happy with it.

Very happy with my purchase of this mini pond. Perfect size for my 5x15 foot balcony, and when the window is open I can hear it trickling indoors. Set up was simple to do. I, like others did not use the light it comes with. It comes with a good selection of stones to get you started. I created a bog like upper garden using ‘wild’ plants I collected from nature. The bowl section I added freshwater aquarium plants that do not require a heater. Once evenings hit a steady 68+ degrees I will add white cloud minnows or rice fish. Only thing to keep in mind is I need to top it up every other day from evaporation. (Use de-chlorinated water if adding fish!)

Nice product, purchased the stand separately. You can purchase or find your larger rocks to fit your own needs