Egret ate ALL of my fish!

[sissy]

my koi were a couple of inches long 9 years ago and now are over 2 ft. long pond is 25ft long and 10 feet wide by just over 4 ft deep .I went deep because hot summers here

 

[gardenlady]

Another reason we should have gone deeper since we are in Houston, Texas and it's terribly hot here! You fish are beautiful which makes me rethink having koi's but I'm afraid I'd missing the plants in the pond. Guess since we are going to redo the pond I could make sure there are ledges to set plants on.

 

[sissy]

no matter if you have ledges or not it is just what koi do .Plus they do get large and are fussy about the water quality .If I knew what i know now I would never have gotten koi .I would have gotten more of the little fish I call popeyes they are slow but fun to watch and just as friendly.The little fat one near aggie and bert my biggest koi is a fantail an they love to swim into my hand when it is in the water to get there belly rub .Very friendly when they get used to you .I have 2 of them

 

[callingcolleen1]

Sorry to hear about your loss garden lady.... I did post some picture and how to keep them away on the wong thread.
So here I go again.....
How To Keep Bad Birds Out of Your Pond... first you will need lots of garden twine, string twine high above the pond from tree to tree or to the house. Cut thin long strips of old cloth and tie on to garden twine every two feet or so, this will dangle and blow in the wind. The blowing strips of cloth will scare the birds away. Criss cross the twine several times to create a web of twine, blocking the large preditor birds from landing or taking off. The twine can be hung by ladder high above your head so it will not take away from the beauty of your lovely pond. I did this two years ago when a big blue heron came and ate half my goldfish from the bottom pond. Bad heron has not come back since. This method is very effective and cheap, I got the idea from the Japanize who do this in Japan to keep the birds away.

 

[callingcolleen1]

I can't seem to get the pictures posted for some reason, will try later. By the way, I just love your stone pathway and your little pond. Did you do all the work yourself


Ok, I think I got the twine pictures now....

 

[gardenlady]

I can't seem to get the pictures posted for some reason, will try later. By the way, I just love your stone pathway and your little pond. Did you do all the work yourself


Ok, I think I got the twine pictures now....

I can see where that would work but I can just hear my neighbors complaining to the association about that being there! My husband built the pond and when he was out of town for a week a few years ago, my daughter and I dug up the grass..brought in sand and flagstone and laid it all out. I love it too, so thank you! If you've read the previous posts you will know that I want to make it bigger and deeper but I walked out back today and thought I just don't know how bigger I can make it without it looking wrong because of the space there with tree and landscaping around the edges. I might be able to just have a narrow path between the tree to the left of the pond *which might not be pictured as I type this* and back around to the side yard which is to the right of the end of the pond with the waterfall. I will make it alittle bigger at least but much deeper. Thanks Colleen!

 

[callingcolleen1]

Well if it happens again and you need to do something quick, just tell the "association" that it's a fancy garden art banner for a summer party!

 

[gardenlady]

Well if it happens again and you need to do something quick, just tell the "association" that it's a fancy garden art banner for a summer party!

Well that made me laugh! There will be no fish until I know I've got something there to protect them trust me. Now I'm going to have fun figuring a new design and that will take my mind off the fact that I'm not going to have fish for a month or two depending on when the hubs business slows down.

 

[sissy]

Even things like those shiny garden spinners spinning in the wind might scare them off .The wind is always moving them .

 

[callingcolleen1]

If you do decide to put some cheap goldfish in the pond, you can build them underwater caves with large PVC pipe that they can swim into and hide when bad bird looks for them. I saw this somewhere on Facebook, and then you can hide the pipe by putting rocks over it. Cheap goldfish are call "feeder fish" anyway, so if by chance the odd one does get eaten, oh well, they were "destined" to be someones lunch anyway ..... that's why they call those goldfish "feeder fish"!

 

[mtpond]

When I set up my pond I put a fish cave in my pond and my fish very rarely go into it. I used a five gallon bucket and put rocks on the top of it. Thank god I have not had any problems with having herons and other predators stocking my fish.

 

[gardenlady]

When I set up my pond I put a fish cave in my pond and my fish very rarely go into it. I used a five gallon bucket and put rocks on the top of it. Thank god I have not had any problems with having herons and other predators stocking my fish.

I was reading about the caves and I know you can buy things to put in there that they can hide in, but then I saw someone post about how the fish can bump into the hard things *rather than the smoothness of the pond itself* and hurt themselves so that put me off of that somewhat.

 

[gardenlady]

I'm thinking of something like this and I had someone suggest making panels so depending on how the new configuration of the pond works out that might work also,

 

[gardenlady]

I definitely getting fantails, shubunkins and calico's again after we get the pond redug and the protective..whatever it ends up being in place

 

[pondlover]

Mt Pond we also have a 5 gallon bucket built into the side of our pond and a tunnel for them on the bottom of the pond. But that darned Heron got every single one of them. I have ordered a net and will cover my pond when I get some replacement fish. :sad: