Thanks for your suggestion, Jan. I will run down and get a test kit. I'm
also going to change out the water and keep working on getting the tads out
of the pond.

Gary

"~ jan" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:08:57 EDT, "Gary" wrote:

I have had about 6-8 goldfish in my pond die over the past 4-6 weeks.
Some
of the goldfish are several years old, and some are younger. The dead
fish
seem to be of various ages/sizes. I haven't noticed any sick fish, and
everyone seems to look and act normally, but occasionally, I find a dead
fish floating in the pond. We had toads mating in the pond this spring
(moreso than usual) and a horrendous hatching of tadpoles. I'm wondering
if
the prolific numbers of tadpoles has altered the water and maybe poisoned
some of the fish. We have always had toads and a few tadpoles with no
problems, but nothing like this year's bumper crop! My pond is a small
300-gallon tank.

I caught two mating toads and relocated them to a nearby large irrigation
pond/lake. I have also scooped out tons of tadpoles with the net, but
there
are still quite a few in there. Has anyone else experienced a similar
situation?

Thanks!

Sure that can happen! And your fish are bigger each year, so they require
more O2. Only way to know for sure is to do a water quality check when
fish
start dying.

Fish that appear to die suddenly with no visible sign of disease is
usually
due to water quality. Frequent partial water changes or a flow system,
while toads were mating, probably could have prevented this. ~ jan
------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds: www.jjspond.us