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Joined: Jul 2020
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I was planting some things around my small ornamental pond a little while ago & saw a small dead fish floating. It's an odd color, sort of tan & brown. All of my regular fish are present & accounted for & much much larger than that one so I have no idea where it came from or why it died. I'm sure it hasn't been there before now or I'd have seen it. It's about 4" long. So not a teeny baby. ??? Any ideas?
I'm kinda freaked out. lol As always, your help & advice is greatly appreciated.
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From the pic of the partially decomposed fish, I think it is likely one that was hatched in the pond. To me it looks more like a goldfish compared to much of anything else. Notice the elongated dorsal fin. You have any goldfish in the pond? Some offspring from goldfish are drab colored.
aka Pond Doctor & Dr. Perca Read Pond Boss Magazine - America's Journal of Pond Management
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Hope2020 |
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Hi and thanks for your reply. Yes, I have goldfish in the pond, nothing else. I'm constantly checking on the pond & looking at the fish & don't see how this one got as big as it did without me seeing it. The water is clear. But it has a rock bottom & sides & the fish would have blended in I guess. Still...
Also sorta worried about why it died. I checked the pH this afternoon & it was okay. The other fish seem fine. I've had them since right after the pond was built last May & have stopped feeding them since the water temp dropped below 50 most of the time as advised.
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Sometimes 1-2 dead fish show up for no apparent reason, perhaps more often in the cold months. If there aren't a whole bunch of corpses, I wouldn't worry too much.
"Live like you'll die tomorrow, but manage your grass like you'll live forever." -S. M. Stirling
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Hope2020 |
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Thanks for your reply. What has me stymied is that this is not one of my known fish. It's much smaller although not a baby. I spend way too much time observing the pond lol & have never seen this fish before. I guess as Bill Cody said it must have been hatched in the pond & somehow I didn't see it. Now I'm wondering if there are more strangers in there. Not sure how much my son spent having the pond built for me as a Mother's Day present but it's provided so much enjoyment I know it was money well spent.
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This may be a stretch, but I have seed herons (Blue Herons) get spooked and spit out fish on two occasions. They must have been feeding on the fish in the creek behind my house when I popped over the bank and frightened them. Once in flight, the bird spit out the fish they were getting ready to swallow. I have also seen snakes do the same thing in mid-swallow when confronted.
Fish on!, Noel
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This may be a stretch, but I have seed herons (Blue Herons) get spooked and spit out fish on two occasions. They must have been feeding on the fish in the creek behind my house when I popped over the bank and frightened them. Once in flight, the bird spit out the fish they were getting ready to swallow. I have also seen snakes do the same thing in mid-swallow when confronted. I've found part of a gar skeleton in the area near my pond. There aren't any gar in the pond so I figure a heron dumped it there.
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This may be a stretch, but I have seed herons (Blue Herons) get spooked and spit out fish on two occasions. They must have been feeding on the fish in the creek behind my house when I popped over the bank and frightened them. Once in flight, the bird spit out the fish they were getting ready to swallow. I have also seen snakes do the same thing in mid-swallow when confronted. I've found part of a gar skeleton in the area near my pond. There aren't any gar in the pond so I figure a heron dumped it there. Most birds, including Herons that eat/catch living things eat their prey whole. Herons wouldn't fly around with a fish carcass or skeleton. Hawks/eagles/owls will pick at things that they've caught and killed, but anything that they can swallow whole they will. I've seen screetch owls suck down a whole mouse, how they do that I have no idea. But Herons don't have a beak to tear food, so they swallow what they catch whole.
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