Lily issues

[Lexrag]

Hi, I’m in Lexington, Ky. For probably 20 years I have had a backyard goldfish pond which over the years has grown to about 2200+ gallons. I have had as many as probably 100 Small to medium size goldfish.....at that time I had incredibly beautiful water lilies....mainly Texas Dawn and Pink grapefruit Which were prolific and dependable bloomers year after year.

I am not down to 50 goldfish....from 4” to 10” in size and over the last two seasons, I have NO lilies.....the fish destroy them before they can even get pads to the top of the water and NO blooms in two years......I know I need to give away at least half of the fish........BUT does anyone have any other suggestions on how I can get my lilies to survive.....discourage my gold fish from destroying them......I have flowering hyacinths hopefully as a diversion and they do attack them...but I don’t care....just want my beautiful lilies to make it.

Thanks
Larry

 

[AlyssaFish]

There are nets you can place around lilies to protect them from fish. Usually used more often with koi than goldfish, but if your goldies have a taste for lily flesh, I'd say look into it.

 

[BKHpondcritters]

I used to be able to just plant my lilies in gravel pockets right in the pond. Not anymore. My koi have reached the size that they pretty much destroyed them last year, so I had to rethink things. I pulled all my lilies & added a few more, but planted them all in large dishpans filled with a mixture of 100% clay kitty litter + aquatic planting medium, then put a screen of welded wire fence over the top of the pan. Now my lilies are isolated & easy to fertilize, PLUS the fish can not get to them to dig/tear them up. So far, so good. They're blooming like crazy!

 

[j.w]

@Lexrag