Fish Gone.!!

Hi folks,
I have a 4ftX4ft X2ft deep fibroglass raised pond. last year and up to the mild winter weather I had 6 small goldfish, so far this year, no sign of them.
The pond is a bit green and I know that last year there were a couple of Water Boatmen in there, do they eat fish?
I switched on the fountain pump about a week ago, thinking it would raise the temp a little.
Anyway, What could have happened do you think?.


[ 08. April 2007, 07:46 PM: Message edited by: fred1935 ]

 

Seagulls? Heron?

It could be your pond isn't deep enough and they died during an icy spell but you would still have seen their remains.

Providing the water quality (nitrate level etc.) is OK green water won't harm goldfish, it just makes the pond unsightly and although it can be an indication of underlying problems it dosen't always follow. This time of year you often get an algae bloom before all the waterplants get going and remove the nutrients that algae thrive on.

Waterboatmen, Diving beetles and Dragonfly larvae are voratious feeders and will take fish fry and taddies but adult fish and frogs should be safe.

 

Thanks frogesque,
Yes I can only think they died of the cold and the remains may have been eaten.
No, Seagulls and Heron's are not possible in my small garden in a fairly built up area, in fact we get very few birds because of cats.

 

Fred Herons will pay you a visit even in a built up area,cats will sit for ages watching fish but I doubt they would successfully catch any

 

Hi, we live in Greater London - quite built up - my mums pond has been visited by the heron now on a few occasions so anything is possible!

 

I had a kingfisher sitting on the side of my pond one morning - he is welcome to my fish as they breed like mad!

 

The heron kept coming to lunch when when we used to have fish in our pond, so we gave up in the end.

Lucky you Waco, a kingfisher! Now, I wouldn't have minded him visiting us, as our fish would have been too big for him.

 

Hi Fred, Don't give up yet. I saw no sign of a fish in my pond up to last week and it is a bit green too, but I had a brain wave at the weekend and sprinkled some food on the pond, a few minutes went by and presto I had fish.Now they are up and looking for their dinner every day.

 

Well, there's hope yet SofK, anyway I bought and put in a water lilie yesterday, �£2, I couldn't say no at that price, mind it might be the big rampant variety but..............

 

Just an update.
Still no fish and after comments on here, advice and info from others I think I am convinced that it was a Heron, hard to believe in my garden but...... There is some evidence, or was, My "friend" in the back bedroom heard a loud flapping noise very early one morning, I did notice a little later that there was a wet patch on the paving near the pond, no footprints, just the patch, mysterious at the time but now clear.

Anyway I've just installed a new pond pump/filter, uv etc but after a couple of hours it's still green, I'm sending it back.
:D :D

 

Fred the filter and uvl will need more than just a few hours to clear up the green water - give it at least a week, then you should see an improvement - good luck

 

I put a filter into my 44 gallon barrel and it took 4-5 days to clear. It's great now!

 

I was joking realy,
Reading the instruction manual it says to give it 6 to 8 weeks depending on the pond.

 

Your pool looks nice in theory, but to the new observer (me) it looks terrible. (Sorry it does) But with a few simple alterations it could be really nice.

May i suggest the following: (I am going to anyway)

Get rid of all the "clutter" (I do realise you took the pic in April, so it may not look the same now) But with a few alterations it could look really nice

How it could look




How it does look



I have removed:
All the pot plants,
The grey feed pipe for the watering can
(You could actually feed the watering can from below, with a bit of ingenuity, i once did it with a Wellington boot of all things, feed pipe was in the heel)
The string holding the watering can
Put more water in the pool, (it does look a bit on the shallow side)

Also turning on a pump will not "raise the temp a little" infact it does the opposite, it cools it down, but it DOES add more oxygen (a good thing)

Since you have a heron problem, may i also suggest you add a net, which could acutely be secured UNDER the top timber edging, so that it is just above the water surface. (You will need to lift the timber edging to do this.)

 

I DO NOT BELIEVE IT.
Here we are the 26th of May, I walked the dog at 6am, fed the two pet rabbits and had a wander round, got to the pond and got the shock of my life, the fish are back from wherever they have been.
They don't look any bigger but are swimming about quiet happily and look healthy.
I had to slap my face, am I dreaming?.

It realy is a great surprise, I had convinced myself that they had been a Heron snack.

I have recently been delving in there, installing the new pump, put in 3 water lilies etc and didn't see a thing.

Ohh by the way, the water is almost clear of the green stuff, can see the bottom, almost.

WG, thank you for your comments.
Yes, I have been going to put a propper feed in the can but just now it's redundant, there is no seperate pump feed.
It now looks a little different, the timber is painted etc.
The water is normally up to the rim, we may have had a dry warm spell or I hadn't filled it completely at the photo time but I must say that I dissagree about the surrounds The large plant at the back is to give it some shade and I have to have somewhere to put plants out of reach of the rabbits. :D