Greetings all...have a little problem with my goldfish. Briefly:

We set up an ornamental pond about a year ago and stocked it with 7-8
of the 26 cent goldfish from walmart. To our surprise they thrived in
the pond and all even made it through the winter. Last night, as
always, I went out, shut off the pump/fountain (this is their dinner
bell and they all know to congregate in the "feeding cove" ) Threw in
a couple dozen food pellets and watched them dart around in their
normal happy feeding frenzy.

Tonight was a different story. I noticed that there weren't any fish
to be seen when I walked up to the pond and as I stopped the pump and
tossed in the food, nobody came to the top to eat it. I watched for
several minutes and still nothing? After a bit longer I got the
skimming net and tried to go "fishing" I just caught a glimpse of one
fish darting off into the depths but nothing else.

Some specs about the pond:

2 feet deep in center (about 3'x7' area)
12-16" deep ledge (about 9'x14' area)
water temp is 77F, 25C
we have various aquatic plants...lily pads, water lettuce, hyacinth,
grasses, etc.
it has a filtration pump that runs 24 hours a day at 500GPM

The pond has had a bit of an algal bloom this spring...water has a
green tint and about 1 foot visibility, but I was hoping the plants
would help and haven't added any chemicals.

The fish have seemed to be quite happy for the past year, now, out of
the blue, nothing?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks
Corey

Hi Corey,

Sudden fish shyness usually means a predator attack.
Raccoons leave a mess so it is easy to tell when they've been by.
Herons, egrets and kingfishers are much harder to spot unless you happen to be
there. Kingfishers will make a loud chattering call but herons are very quiet
unless disturbed then they squawk.

It will take about 2-3 weeks for your fish to get over the visit.

If one of these critters visited your pond you can try these methods:

- bird netting over the pond
- put in an pond shock fence
- a motion activated sprinkler
(go to froogle.com to find these products)
- Migratory Bird Act forbids lethal methods,
heavy fines and jail time take away from pond time ;-)

good luck!




kathy :-)
algae primer
http://hometown.aol.com/ka30p/myhomepage/garden.html

Kathy,

Thanks for the additional info. I will keep my eyes peeled for any
signs of predatory birds / critters stalking the pond. So far all I
have really seen is the occasional robin or bluejay swoop down to take
a bath. A month or so ago I caught the neighbors cat getting a drink,
but he seemed more interested in the water than the fish. No plants
or rocks around the pond really seem to be disturbed. The water has
about a 60% covering of lily pads and other aquatic plants. None of
those appear to have been disturbed either.

I guess my main concern was that somehow the algae had become too
thick and/or the oxygen had been reduced in the water, or a large
temperature swing had caused problems. But the pond is ~1200 gallons,
and shaded for all but about 3 hours from noon to 3pm, so it really
doesn't see wide temp swings from one day to the next. And we are
talking 7-8 four inch long fish in 1200 gallons so the pond shouldn't
be hurting for capacity. The pump is rated for ~400-500 GPH so it is
turning/aerating the water quite a bit. I also suspect that if they
were oxygen starved, they might be right at the surface instead of
diving deep?

I guess I will hang back and wait and see...I had them trained to just
about come up and take food out of my hand. I guess that behavior
might be "spooked" out of them for some time to come?

Thanks again for the info

Corey



EROSPAM (Ka30P) wrote in message ...
Hi Corey,

Sudden fish shyness usually means a predator attack.
Raccoons leave a mess so it is easy to tell when they've been by.
Herons, egrets and kingfishers are much harder to spot unless you happen to be
there. Kingfishers will make a loud chattering call but herons are very quiet
unless disturbed then they squawk.

It will take about 2-3 weeks for your fish to get over the visit.

If one of these critters visited your pond you can try these methods:

- bird netting over the pond
- put in an pond shock fence
- a motion activated sprinkler
(go to froogle.com to find these products)
- Migratory Bird Act forbids lethal methods,
heavy fines and jail time take away from pond time ;-)

good luck!




kathy :-)
algae primer
http://hometown.aol.com/ka30p/myhomepage/garden.html

Corey wrote I also suspect that if they
were oxygen starved, they might be right at the surface instead of
diving deep?

Yes, they'll be gasping at the surface if they are lacking in oxygen.

I guess that behavior
might be "spooked" out of them for some time to come?

It will probably take a couple weeks for them to come around.

Hope you can discover what happened!



kathy :-)
algae primer
http://hometown.aol.com/ka30p/myhomepage/garden.html