How to stop the carnage? :(

[MitchM]

hmm, no.
I'll have to look that up to understand why.

(got it - family Cyprinidae)

 

[Faebinder]

You guys are making me rethink the installation of a skimmer this June. I have fancy goldfish and I dont want them to be sucked in.

 

[MitchM]

You guys are making me rethink the installation of a skimmer this June. I have fancy goldfish and I dont want them to be sucked in.

Most other people don't report problems like this with their skimmers.
My problem may be due to how long I have cooler water temperatures and possibly the wildlife species that populate my pond and their natural slow reaction time.
I do want to make my pond as friendly to all life forms as much as possible though.

.

 

[HARO]

And that is precisely why I don't have a skimmer!
John

 

[MitchM]

And that is precisely why I don't have a skimmer!
John

How do you have your pond water circulation set up?

 

[Mucky_Waters]

Interesting problem.
I've only ever had one casualty in my skimmer, and that was in my old pond when I found the lifeless corpse of one of my yearling turtles in there. For what it's worth I don't think that turtle was in the best of health and likely would have perished anyway if left on his own in the wild. I read somewhere that in the wild the mortality rate of some species of turtles is about one in fifty that survive to breeding age, with the majority of them dying in their first year of life.
Maybe you just have to think of your skimmer as fulfilling the role of the wolf in nature that culls the slow, sick and stupid out of the herds to make for a stronger herd.
One thing I see though is it looks your skimmer may not have a basket? My skimmer has a basket that can't be bypassed by frogs or fish. Anything that gets sucked into the skimmer over 1/4" in size will get caught in the skimmer basket and can't get sucked through to the pump. Perhaps you simply just need a different skimmer design to stop the worst of the carnage.

Interestingly I have never found any fish, frogs or turtles, etc in my skimmer basket in my new pond, either alive or dead. I can't explain why, but perhaps it is because I'm only sucking somewhere between 1,000 to 1,200 gph through it compared to your 4,200 GPH?

 

[brokensword]

Mitch;

couldn't you just use the natural plantings (as you've stated exist in your local natal pond) within the context of an up flow wetlands filter? I don't have your water temps but that's all I use; bog and plantings. I do have a water fall and aeration as well. Plus, I know most think my pond is overstocked (about 100 6+ inches of goldfish) in 2700 gallons but it's been working fine so far. Hard to believe you couldn't get by with natural plantings even around the edges ala your natural pond example.

Michael

 

[callingcolleen1]

Did you try those plants I recommended a while back Mitch? I have some stuff that freezes solid in the front yard pond that always comes back. Maybe your local moose are eating your plants ?
sorry about your skimmer problem but cannot help you there cause I don't have a big skimmer, just a little Laguna one that I use in the summer in my bottom pond. I wonder if you could put some screen or net before the skimmer in some way?

 

[sissy]

no skimmer here but I even saw little fish swim into the helix skimmer down at living waterscapes .The number one thing he told me is the pump has to be rated for the size skimmer .I asked if it would be effected by water level in the pond and he told me because it is lower the pond would have to be really low to effect it if you do not have an automatic fill .But those skimmers were out of my budget and feel I don't need it anyways.He even told me that they have built ponds that have no skimmer ,no need for one in a natural pond if you don't have a reason for one .They have a pond there that he showed me at the back and it has no skimmer and you could not tell the difference .But if you need one then you need one .

 

[Tula]

Interesting problem.
Interestingly I have never found any fish, frogs or turtles, etc in my skimmer basket in my new pond, either alive or dead. I can't explain why, but perhaps it is because I'm only sucking somewhere between 1,000 to 1,200 gph through it compared to your 4,200 GPH?

I wonder about the amount of water being pulled through the skimmer too. I removed one of my pumps from the skimmer last summer, to slow the rate passing by the UV, so am now only pulling 1200 through the skimmer.

 

[sissy]

The number one reason tula that I use a small pump for just my U.V's

 

[Mucky_Waters]

One interesting observation I made regarding my skimmer and my old pond. The mortality rate of my goldfish fry went way up when I installed an upper pond. The reason being was I didn't have any fish or turtles in the upper pond and some of the tiny newly hatched fry would get sucked through the skimmer, through the skimmer basket, through the pump and get deposited into the upper pond, where, if they made it safely through the pump without getting ground up, they had a chance of growing to a size where they were no longer so vulnerable to getting eaten even if by chance they went over the falls and found themselves back in the lower pond again with the other fish and turtles..
So in that particular case the skimmer actually increased the mortality rate of the baby fish because there was zero survival rate for them if they remained in the lower pond.

 

[addy1]

I end up with fish in my fishless ponds, they, either as eggs or tiny fry, make it through a clear water pump, or the 6800 gph pump and get deposited in the other ponds. Every year I see a few swimming around, even found a small fry in the bog. No clue how it got there.

 

[Meyer Jordan]

even found a small fry in the bog. No clue how it got there.

Fry in wetlands filters is not that uncommon, but most of the time they are not seen. Fertilized eggs are transported to the filter by the pump where they hatch.

 

[sissy]

birds, frog legs and everything else can carry eggs .Even nets when you net the pond .