Missing koi in pond - hiding or gone forever?

[addy1]

Should this be a concern? Or is there likely to be plenty of room for these additions? In any case we have stepped up the hand feeding so this should make up the difference.

The balance has been affected, but it will re-balance again. Some of the fish will eat more of the eggs of others, some will survive, some will die. Give it time.
Your pond is large, there is a lot of plant material, they all should have plenty to eat. Carp ie goldfish koi are pretty hardy and I am sure a lot of them will survive.

 

[OllieOtter1994]

Brill thanks, that's good to know - thanks very much. Hopefully we don't find any more casualties!!

 

[Lisak1]

will he stop swimming on the wonk?

I can't answer this one, but just wanted to say I love this description! "On the wonk" is now part of my lexicon!

 

[Magzire]

Now thats a pond.

That's a lake

 

[OllieOtter1994]

Since the last update we have added some new baby koi carp, all seem to have settled in well and are easily spotted shoaling together.

However I’m quite worried that we’ve lost the large carp we’ve added, as well as a lot of the bigger goldfish. Aside from fairly regular heron visits which we tend to shoo off, a dead otter has been found at the bottom of our lane, presumably hit by a car as this is a main road. This thing is huge, maybe 4ft from nose to tail (see below pic). There are no rivers or streams nearby so perhaps this was the same visitor we had towards the end of last year when dad spotted one in the pond.

This find has coincided with the slow depletion of big carp / goldfish spottings, none of the 6 big fish we’ve added are visible any more. For weeks after adding them originally we would easily spot at least 2/3 of them with every visit round the pond, but slowly those sightings have dwindled. Although it did not feel like a sudden disappearance, it felt more like they were getting settled into the weed etc. And becoming more hidden, sightings seemed to become more occasional naturally. We also thought this may gave been due to the temperature dropping off slightly as summer was ending, but it’s been 28/30 degrees celsius this weekend and still nothing on the surface which I find really odd!

I am less hopeful of their wellbeing now that this otter has been found, I find it hard to believe they are still in there yet remaining completely hidden; when they had been fairly easy to spot initially and when there are quite a number of larger fish. We regularly spend hours by the pond and looking round etc so they are doing exceptionally well to remain hidden. We have also removed tons of weed and did not happen upon any fish then either.

However, I know that usually with otter damage there will be all sorts of remnants left behind; fish scales, bones, carcasses, signs of nesting, droppings etc etc. There was nothing obvious found in the clearings and I have also searched all through the bushes that would provide shelter for it and still nothing left behind in terms of fish, which I find surprising given the big carp were from 1lb - 7lb heavy. How could their bodies completely vanish?

However I did find this chewed up looking rotten branch wood - could this be a nest of some sort? No droppings or other signs of life were found here.

The fact I have found no remains does give me some hope! And looking at it positively we at least know the otter is dead now, and I can’t imagine there any others nearby given this is rather remote and away from running water. Is it likely that future additions will be safe or are we just wasting our time? It is all rather depressing and baffling to not have a clear cut answer.

For reference, this is what the outskirts of the pond looks like, as you can see there is little in the way of sheltered area for an otter to enter, exit and take fish from, the dense bush in the corner being the area I have checked and found the wooden spot.

Would welcome any thoughts on this! If there are any other checks I can make to see if the otter has got them, what your own experience with otters are etc that would be much appreciated! Thanks all.

 

[Lisak1]

How about a mask and snorkel and a swim in the pond?

 

[Faebinder]

OTTERS ARE not solo animals...

 

[SamNDeb]

We have had similar experiences.

We have removed ten snapping turtles.

I suspect the large koi we put in last December (and saw just let a few of in May) all died by the snappers.

The rest are probably being lost to a great blue heron.

If you live in a place which could have snapping turtles try to remove them.

Nice pond and fish population you’ve got there.

 

[Mmathis]

@SamNDeb Hello and welcome! This thread is about a year old.

Why not go over to “introductions “ and tell us about yourself and your pond.

 

[SamNDeb]

@SamNDeb Hello and welcome! This thread is about a year old.

Why not go over to “introductions “ and tell us about yourself and your pond.

yep. Thx.

 

[newtofish]

Hi, I appreciate this is an old thread but wondered if you ever found what happened to your lovely big koi and carp?
We have similar sized lake in Worcester, UK and have same issue.. Gradual disappearance of our huge koi some nearly 80cm in length and no signs of what has taken them!

Hi all

New poster on here!! I have a fair few questions about our pond and it feels a bit of a mystery at the minute!

Our pond is a ¼ acre in size, has a silty bottom (but lined with clay) and lots of weed – although we did make an effort to clear a lot of it out last year, around 80% of it. It has always been crystal clear as far back as we have been here (over 60 years).

In the last 10 years we have stocked with silverfish - there are now hundreds of roach! Last year we also branched out with 9 gold grass carp, 4 tench, some goldfish and shubunkins and 3 koi carp. The koi carp were a fairly decent size – probably 12-16 inches.

However since adding the koi to the pond we have not seen them once, they were added around October of last year so when the weather was turning – we figured they were at the bottom of pond (it gets 5 foot deep in the middle and hard to see from the bank).

Now that the weather is starting to get out, we’d expect to see the fish again, but we haven’t seen any grass carp (we could often see at least 7/8 of them on the surface last year), still no koi and also now a lot less goldfish / no shubunkins. Presumably the smaller fish have been made heron food… The kois however would surely be too big for the heron, as well as being in the deeper parts of the pond / out of sight in the winter months?

We have also had brief encounters with cormorants and once with an otter. Which is odd given there are no nearby streams, I wonder how deadly one visit would be, I,e, would it be likely to decimate all the larger fish in the pond before moving on? We did not find any trace of any dead bodies although there are built up / bushy areas near the pond which could potentially hide a body.

However, we do have some hope the koi may be somewhere in the pond still, the water has been clouded up almost completed (its never been like this before) – is there a chance the kois could still be in there? Would 3 kois even murky up the waters that much on a quarter acre pond? Or is this down to there being less weed in the pond?

Having fished for carp a lot I'm convinced we would've seen the kois on the surface by now, but my father feels they are still in there given how murky the water is now...

I’d really appreciate if people could recount their experiences with such issues and offer their advice!

Thanks!


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[stubbsie]

Hi, I appreciate this is an old thread but wondered if you ever found what happened to your lovely big koi and carp?
We have similar sized lake in Worcester, UK and have same issue.. Gradual disappearance of our huge koi some nearly 80cm in length and no signs of what has taken them!

I have seen a fox disappearing down the side of my shed with a 50cm fish in its mouth! Heron are also a problem if you are on a migratory route. I have tried using a decoy heron but two days later I looked out my window to see a real heron standing next to it! ( i wish I had taken a photo!).

I only have a small pond but after a heron incident I thought that all 11 goldfish had been eaten, some as large as 25cm. I bought 5 new fish but after about a week 8 of the original fish reappeared! They had all been hiding in a small cave that I had made for my 2 turtles, (red and yellow neck sliders, each 20cms).