My fish are crazy
 

My pond is about 1300 gallons (just a swag.. might be more or less) and
I have lots of goldfish and kio in there. When I setup the pond i only
put maybe 6 goldfish and 3 or 4 kio in there and now I have many many
more. In past years I have removed some of the babies to help control
the population but the pond still seems to have more fish then would be
generally recommended.

Like I said... the fish are crazy. If I stand near the pond the fish
will all hide at the bottom, and usually wait until I walk away to eat
if I put food it. I just got the pump and filter running early this
week and the water is starting to clear up a bit. (it's been dark
green). I checked the usual suspects, Ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, PH ~
7.5. everything seems like it should be good. I haven't had any fish
show up dead that I know of.
I thought about pumping a bunch on water out and cleaning out the
bottom and getting all the alge off the sides of the pond but is it
possible that I am causing some emotional trauma to the fish by doing
so? Maybe they are upset about me romoving their babies?

Any thoughts about what might be wrong with there fish?

Fish will act skittish anytime there is something
out of the ordinary for them.

That would be - netting out unwanted fish,
an attack by a predator (heron, raccoon, snake,
kingfisher), something falling into the pond, basically
anything that disturbs their world.

Sounds like the water was murky and now clearing
up. They are probably feeling vunerable from the surface.

Cleaning the pond will be traumatic, no way around it
but not cleaning it could be worse.
Also I would not clean the algae off the sides, substrate
algae like that is part of the pond's natural balance.

kathy :-)
www.blogfromthebog.com
new entry ~ herons

In my case, a little bird the size of a Sparrow could cause
that kind of problem.

Eddypilot wrote:

My pond is about 1300 gallons (just a swag.. might be more or less) and
I have lots of goldfish and kio in there. When I setup the pond i only
put maybe 6 goldfish and 3 or 4 kio in there and now I have many many
more. In past years I have removed some of the babies to help control
the population but the pond still seems to have more fish then would be
generally recommended.

Like I said... the fish are crazy. If I stand near the pond the fish
will all hide at the bottom, and usually wait until I walk away to eat
if I put food it. I just got the pump and filter running early this
week and the water is starting to clear up a bit. (it's been dark
green). I checked the usual suspects, Ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, PH ~
7.5. everything seems like it should be good. I haven't had any fish
show up dead that I know of.
I thought about pumping a bunch on water out and cleaning out the
bottom and getting all the alge off the sides of the pond but is it
possible that I am causing some emotional trauma to the fish by doing
so? Maybe they are upset about me romoving their babies?

Any thoughts about what might be wrong with there fish?