My fish have disappeared

[Spion]

Hi. I introduced 50 small fish (goldfish, sarasa comets & orfe) last May into my large above ground fountain pool. They happily swam arround in shoals and after this winter I began to re-introduced light feeding two weeks ago (when water temperature reached 12 deg C). They all came up for food but now, suddenly, they have all disappeared!!!
Water temp is now 14 deg C, the three tiered fountain has run continously since the fish were introduced and I have an electric fence on the wall of the pool which stops any heron landing.
Can anyone offer any explanation as to where the fish may have gone?

 

[addy1]

Welcome to our forum!

Could you post a picture of your set up? Do you have otters, raccoons etc that may have raided the pond. I think I read mink like fish also, but can be wrong. Owls, hawks etc also can raid a pond.

 

[j.w]

@Spion
Anything that can sneak in through or under the wire would be suspicious candidate.

 

[Jhn]

How deep is the pond? Herons will land directly in the pond if it is shallow enough bypassing the electric fence on the pond wall.

 

[poconojoe]

Sometimes they get spooked and hide for a while. Hopefully that's the case.

 

[Spion]

Thank you Andy1.
I should have mentioned that I am located in the UK so those little critters wont be seen over here. I have uploaded a picture of the pond which I hope you can see. It is 20ft across flats and 2ft 3in deep. the structure top right of the pool houses a graded gravel filter and the pump draws the water through this supplying the fountain. The top capping of the wall is 1ft wide and has three electrified wires running
along the top preventing anything from resting there. The fountain is kept running 24/7 so oxygen should not be a problem. Nitrate & ammonia levels are 0 and Ph 7.8.
What I can't understand is how 50 fish can go to ground just when the weather is warming up. Are they all courting down there???
Any views would be welcome

 

[poconojoe]

That's a very beautiful pond/fountain!
Many times I have not seen a certain fish for a while and all of a sudden, there it is! A couple times it was a big fish too! Once a 18" koi. They have a way of hiding, especially if some critter spooks them.

 

[addy1]

Very nice set up, great build! One year I thought I had loss a lot of fish, next thing I know they all showed up. Who knows where they were hiding, somewhere in the plants.

 

[JamieB]

Hopefully they are hiding, and not in the belly of some bird's. Kingfishers, and herons, egrets, and several other bird's could easily fly by for lunch.

 

[Mmathis]

Hello! I can speak from experience — be patient! We moved a little over a year ago, but still don’t have our new pond dug. Goldfish are in stock tanks in the backyard. Earlier in the year we had an egret that decided to feast on my fish! At one point, when I thought there were none left, I wiggled a net around in all of the plants and hide places. No fish! The egret cleaned me out! But wait, it gets better! I still have fish! They were just super good at hiding! You have to sneak up on them to see them.

 

[gimpy]

Have you gone out to the pond after dark with a flashlight and looked for them? If you haven't, you might try that. See if some might show up?