r/Pondscaping

I have a pond that is just liner but would like to add water lilies to help with the look of the pond, the water quality and give some benefits to my koi.

Eventually we are going to extend and redo the koi pond and be more natural, but for now I’d like to add plants.

I could very well be overthinking it. I just want to make sure it’s safe for my fish and won’t degrade over time. Any advice would be incredibly helpful!

Beginner here trying to salvage a bizarre situation:

I was out of town for a few weeks and when I came back home my best friend had set up a small barrel pond on our porch with some duckweed, lucky bamboo, and hornwart. It's cute enough and she has a solar-powered bubbler running to it to keep it oxygenated.

Now a few problems:

• The Pond gets zero sun. Even the solar bubbler had to be run several feet away out from under the balcony it's set up under.
• There are no outlets anywhere nearby so I can't hook a filter or a heater up to it.
• It's about 15-20 gallons outside in Los Angeles. It doesn't get cold enough to freeze here but it's reasonably chilly during the winter and I think anything we put in it will die from exposure sooner or later.

She has already released about 8 gold and white cloud minnows into it and a handful of ghost and cherry shrimp (which you can't see at all lol) and she's saying she wants to put more fish in soon. How do I keep these fish from dying. Is this fated to be doomed? Thank you in advance.