Dead fish

[Nepen]

Today when I count my fish (I'm crazy that way, I count my fish and remember them all), one was missing. So I looked everywhere for her (my newest female watonai) and about to give up when I looked under a piece of liner that hung over the pond. She's dead

I didn't see any injury or notice anything abnormal. I saw her yesterday eating with the rest acting normal and today she's dead. She just spawned last week I believe.

What can it be?

Water tested normal.

I'm one back to 1 female and 7!!!!! Males. I have a feeling I really need more female soon. Can be chased to her death? The other female is my shubunkin and she's been a sole female for a long time until I got the watonai. Now she's back to be a sole female again with more male!

The rest of the fish act normal, no skittish, no spots or anything I can see that indicate sickness.

 

[Dave 54]

your male to female ratio is well off nephen you did QT this new female I take it yes ?

Dave

 

[j.w]

Sorry to hear that Nepen. Maybe she was ill when you got her and it took her this long to succumb to it. Maybe she got chased to death by the boys. You do need more females tho so the frenzy can be spread about some. Sometimes fish die and we can't figure out why. Like people they could be born w/ a deficient organ in their body and we would never know.

 

[Nepen]

Thanks Dave and j.w.

Dave, I didn't know how how many female/male I got until this year, last year all were too young. And it turned out to be 1 female and 5 male. A month ago I bought 3 more and learned that they were 2 male and 1 female, was trying to get more female but ended up to be male. yes I did qt them for a week then my sin put them in the pond for me, it's been about a month now.

J.w, my guess is she just got too tired from spawning. I couldn't see anything wrong at all. She's pretty shy and would come out only when feeding time so my guess is she got chased a lot so she hid a lot.

I really need to get more girls but I just don't know how to get them, the ebay fish won't tell the sex so I have no idea what I get

 

[R.Rose]

Nepen, You have my sympathy, I just lost 20 fish. One is one too many to lose and not knowing why. Like you I would feed them and do a twice daily head count. If one did not show up to eat I would look for it and too my relief it would suddenly appear after its private fishy business was done to eat.
When they all got ill, one hid behind a loose liner flap and died there. I didn't find her until I emptied the pond and lifted the loose liner and there she was. She was either too weak to back out or it just felt like a quiet and safe place to rest and sleep. The ground around the back of my pound got raised up due to a growing tree root. Nine inches of liner was exposed to sunlight and I covered it with spare liner about 6 years ago secured by a rock above the pond and the liner just draped against the side of the pond into the water. I knew frogs liked to nestle but I hadn't observed my fish showing an interest in that flap. I read that draping a liner into the water can siphon up the water and lower pond levels over time. I kept an eye on that and it never happened. I was trying to figure out how to use the raised root, like putting a waterfall on top of it,so the liner flap was only to be temporary. Perhaps your fish found it to be a nice hiding place and maybe the liner closed in on her due to water adhesion (sticking the liners together) with reduced oxygen flow and your fish suffocated. Pond supply companies sell fish tunnels that they can hide in when scared. We can think of obvious dangers in the pond to avoid to keep our fish safe but there is always something that is overlooked. I removed the loose flap when I purged my pond and still trying to think how to hide the exposed liner.

If you are not emotionally attached to all of your fish a pond supply nursery may trade some of your males for females. There should be a way to ID the sex of a fish. When I had all gold fish the males had tiny spots on their gill flaps. I traded my bog bean plants for fish at a greenhouse/pond nursery.

Rose

 

[RobAmy]

Sorry for you loss. That ratio may a have been just to hard on her. To many wanting to chase her. I think getting a few more females sounds like a good plan.

 

[Mmathis]

your male to female ratio is well off nephen you did QT this new female I take it yes ?

Dave

Dave, no. Remember these were the fish that her toddler son felt sorry for -- he took them out of QT and put them in the pond.

 

[Mmathis]

So sorry to hear!

How big is your pond -- I don't recall.

 

[Dave 54]

Dave, no. Remember these were the fish that her toddler son felt sorry for -- he took them out of QT and put them in the pond.

Ah I see Maggie , I feel that once she gets the male to female ration right they we wont see this happen again dont you agree ?

Dave

 

[Nepen]

Nepen, You have my sympathy, I just lost 20 fish. One is one too many to lose and not knowing why. Like you I would feed them and do a twice daily head count. If one did not show up to eat I would look for it and too my relief it would suddenly appear after its private fishy business was done to eat.
When they all got ill, one hid behind a loose liner flap and died there. I didn't find her until I emptied the pond and lifted the loose liner and there she was. She was either too weak to back out or it just felt like a quiet and safe place to rest and sleep. The ground around the back of my pound got raised up due to a growing tree root. Nine inches of liner was exposed to sunlight and I covered it with spare liner about 6 years ago secured by a rock above the pond and the liner just draped against the side of the pond into the water. I knew frogs liked to nestle but I hadn't observed my fish showing an interest in that flap. I read that draping a liner into the water can siphon up the water and lower pond levels over time. I kept an eye on that and it never happened. I was trying to figure out how to use the raised root, like putting a waterfall on top of it,so the liner flap was only to be temporary. Perhaps your fish found it to be a nice hiding place and maybe the liner closed in on her due to water adhesion (sticking the liners together) with reduced oxygen flow and your fish suffocated. Pond supply companies sell fish tunnels that they can hide in when scared. We can think of obvious dangers in the pond to avoid to keep our fish safe but there is always something that is overlooked. I removed the loose flap when I purged my pond and still trying to think how to hide the exposed liner.

If you are not emotionally attached to all of your fish a pond supply nursery may trade some of your males for females. There should be a way to ID the sex of a fish. When I had all gold fish the males had tiny spots on their gill flaps. I traded my bog bean plants for fish at a greenhouse/pond nursery.

Rose

Oh that's so possible that she got stuck there. I'll have to cut the flap may be a little higher so it'll be shorter and won't able to enclosed the whole fish like that.

I'm so sorry for your lost as well.

I'm pretty attached to my fish and want to have variety. I can give away the 2 that I have, they are pretty, but if I have to reduce the male that would be the ones.

Thanks MMathis and Dave, today will be the 3 weeks mark if they would still be in the QT. I got to qt them for a week only

My pond is about 500-600 gallon depend on the water level, 8 goldfish, 4 container bogs and 1 bio filter.

What is a better ratio for male to female? I don't think I can add too many fish to my pond, I think 12 is my limit but I don't want to add them at once, hoping for babies room lol.

 

[Mmathis]

Gee, I have no clue as to a good male/female ratio! I have no idea what my fish are when I get them. Maybe in nature there is a rule of survival, but in my pond, I have what I have.

No, you probably don't need any more fish as you will get babies eventually -- babies happen, LOL! I rescued a bunch from my pond before I took it down for renovations -- probably should have let nature take its course, but I couldn't resist. Ended up with over 20 "younglings" [and boy, were they work to care for -- but an excellent learning experience for me!] that I'll most likely end up re-homing [except for the Shubies] as I, like you, want to concentrate on those lovely Wakin & Watonai [and Shubunkins!]!

It's heartbreaking to lose one, but it does happen! Don't let it get you down too much. Try to figure out what went wrong THIS time, and learn from it so it won't happen again [if it's something under your control -- it's not always something you, as a ponder, did wrong.].

 

[Nepen]

Thanks MMathis, you are always so kind I know I'll have babies. I'm follwing the the spawning and try to observe the baby fish too.

I know my female watonai spawned last week and I saw babies came out of the eggs but 4 days in and the babies were gone. Don't know what happened, they were all gone from the area where they hatched which have tons of food for them. So I think they might got eaten by my guppies or they just died off. I hope I get a baby or two by that spawning. Only time can tell if I get any.

I might be moving and have to build a new pond, then I'll get to get more fish. Right now I'm going to wait until I know more. My female shubby seems to do fine with being one female.


My thinking- is that the female watonai might be a tad slow so she got beat up quite a lot by all the male which are faster and the same speed as her. I didn't think much about this before I got her but if I'm getting more female watonai I'll have to get more hiding place for them. My sarassas are rough and super fast it might be too hard on the new female. I really think it's from spawning (or suffocation ) as there is no other indication of other sickness when I observed her body and fins.