Thanks for your reply oranda! As far as the filter, I was thinking that a turnover of 4x was alright in addition to my fountain, that adds just over a 1x per hour for a total of 5x. I had no idea I needed so much! I do have a spare fountain pump that pushes 100 GPH that I was using on a 3-tier fountain back when we lived in Texas. Perhaps I'll swap them out and that will give me a 10x turnover, but still only a 4x filtration turnover. I've read, and re-read a lot of "Whiskey barrel fish pond" sites and very few of them use filtration aside from the natural cycle. The only thing I can really do is check and monitor daily. I finally convinced the wife for at least an Ammonia test kit and I'll eventually build up the supply. When I took the trip to my local pet shop to get the fish, I took a sample of water for them to test to be sure and all was fine (reading 0's, "safe", etc). Of course, this doesn't help me now that there is a fish in there....

But thanks for your reply. I will keep you posted on what happens. My gut keeps telling me that he's just playing shy in a new environment.

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