My goldfish have disappeared!

[fishin4cars]

Thanks! How do I know when it has stabilized itself? And I do think some of the turtles have perhaps crawled out. It would be very easy for them to do so.

keep testing ammonia, what will happen is the ammonia will slowly start decreasing, and nitrites will start rising, these too are dangerous in high levels but not as bad as ammonia, The the nitrites will start going down and the nitrates will come up. when your reading some nitrates it means your bacteria are working and eating like they are suppose to. nitrates are what the plants eat, They are the least dangerous of the three, Nitrates get eaten by plants so if you have a whole lot of plants then your nitrates will normally stay low, if the plants can't keep up and the nitrates keep climbing then that's why you would want to do water changes and either feed less, or reduce your fish load as that is what is starting the process to begin with. So now you have gotten the story of cycling a pond. LOL It Is One cycle of life......

 

[max384]

Thanks for all the help guys. Looks like you all were right. It appears they were just hiding. I got some time and just stood and watched and saw some of them peak out and swim back into their hiding places. I've also only seen one of the dark colored ones, even though I started off with about five or six of them. This makes sense since they blend in much better. If it was a predator issue, the bright orange ones would be the first to go. Also, the only thing on my trail cam was my dog, myself, and my kids!

 

[Andins]

no net? I'm going with a heron! I have lost ALL my fish to them but not anymore! I finally gave in and purchased an ugly net. I put dowels on each end so that I can remove it easily. When I am entertaining in the yard the net comes off and the pond looks awesome! When its just me net goes back on and the heron loose out on a tasty snack! Last time the took my most favorite fish and just left her head for me to find!

 

[mikeinpgh]

I agree....hiding. I have a rock liner also hiding the top of my liner down about 6" into the water of a 200 gal pond i installed 2 weeks ago. Put (2) 2" koi and 25+ tadpoles. We saw max 2 tadpoles and zero koi for 6 days. Then, yesterday the koi appeared for maybe 30 seconds, then darted back into the rocks. We never see more than 2 of the tadpoles at one time. They scoot right into the rocks whenever they see movement. I wonder if more activity will be viewable at nite with a flashlite.....Will look tonite!

I like the flashlight idea. I just found out I still have a frog. I think it's one from last year. I haven't seen him in months. I went out one night this week with the flashlight and saw him. I also saw 3 baby fish and some tadpoles that I rarely see. Try it and let us know what you find.

 

[addy1]

My frogs just sit out along the pond sunning themselves. They don't even try to hide when I come by unless I get within a foot of them. It is fun to go out at night with a good flashlight to see things, used to love night diving, the life under the water at night is unreal.

 

[CountryEscape]

Addy, I scuba dive, also, and it's a totally different world out there at night underwater! VERY cool! Best night dives I've had were in only 15' of water, just sitting on the bottom for an hour. Unreal all the things that walk, swim and scoot by. Great idea to use a flashlight to check out your ponds at night. First I have to HAVE some fish in my pond ..... getting there, soon, just not yet.

 

[addy1]

Love diving, at a younger age lol on dive trips would go down 4 times a day. If you have any piers around check out the night life. I love it when the various shelled critters open at night, there was one that was bright orange, tentacles went out over a foot. Have beautiful photos of it.

 

[CountryEscape]

Addy, post pics of the shellfish you are referring to! I'd love to see it, bet others would as well. No piers around here in Illinois, and lakes are far too murky to see far, although I was certified in a strip mine in So. IL. Kinda scary, but the bluegill were nibbling at my gloved fingers, and we were turning over rocks for the bass to get the little critters under them, which was fun to watch as well! They actually got to fighting who was going to keep us humans as their personal food-getters. LOL One bass was very aggressive, keeping others away, waiting patiently next to me for the next rock turn-over.

 

[fishin4cars]

I never got the chance to do any real diving, always had the desire just never did. But I got some opportunities that most don't get I would like to share and I hope you enjoy. The pics I took the night Katrina was coming into the Gulf of Mexico, I took these just minutes before we got evacuated from the platform. Yes, even the coming of darkness in the Gulf brings out some very intresting colors. I still think out of all the photo's I've ever taken these are some of my favorites.
The videos, were taken by ROV, Remote operated Vehicle. I was actually getting to operate the joy sticks when the whale shark came into view. As some of you may know I worked in the Gulf for 15 years before I got hurt. The dive team invited me up to the contol house to give it a try, What I got was more than a try at operating a ROV, Much much more! To me it was the chance of a lifetime!!! The other two were also taken from the same team but I was not involved in taking them. But I would like to give special thanks to My good buddy Mike at Global diving for allowing me to share these. again, This is nature and you never know what to expect. I hope the grouper video doesn't offend anyone as it is pretty .... well I'll let the video tell the tell. I hope this works!

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[addy1]

wow thanks for sharing fishin, loved to dive with groupers, they are one friendly fish and can be huge!

That whale is beautiful

 

[CountryEscape]

Great videos, Fishin! I dove with groupers, never saw any over 3' until a dive in the FL Keys. Guide said there were 2 large ones, but until I saw them I had no idea how large! And, the biggest Mammoth Grouper was longer than I am tall! I'm only 5', but STILL! And, talk about a ham for the camera (of course we didn't have the good underwater camera that dive), I floated parallel to his still body, and there was the proof of his length. He was probably closer to 6', since I had fins on. I could have reached out and touched him but I didn't want to scare him for others wanting a picture. I looked him directly in the eye, and he kept swiveling his eye at me, so very cool! That's probably my most memorable dive, as the same dive, saw schooling fish that would "part" when a bigger fish wanted to come out of the middle. Just like on Discovery shows. And, funny thing was, other fish were hiding in the school.

 

[j.w]

Fantastic video's fishin..........can't believe that fish ate the whole fish........what must that feel like going down his throat? Ewwwwwwwwwwww, not eating any live moving food, no way :lol:

 

[fishin4cars]

One of the last jobs I did before leaving the Gulf we were working with a team from Washington and they were more river divers. The last dive of the trip they spotted a VERY large Manta Ray. It came up beside the platform a few times and we estimated the wing span to be about 20'. One of the divers grabbed the front nose and took about a 200 yard swim with it, It was really cool seeing it but no one got it on video. I always liked watching the diver's as you never knew what they were going to get to see down in all the platform structure.

 

[Karen]

One of the last jobs I did before leaving the Gulf we were working with a team from Washington and they were more river divers. The last dive of the trip they spotted a VERY large Manta Ray. It came up beside the platform a few times and we estimated the wing span to be about 20'. One of the divers grabbed the front nose and took about a 200 yard swim with it, It was really cool seeing it but no one got it on video. I always liked watching the diver's as you never knew what they were going to get to see down in all the platform structure.

Awesome Video! What company did you work for? My Father in law and Uncle (by marriage) both work(ed) off shore in the gulf. For ANR Pipeline and later named Coastal...now it's ElPaso Corp I believe. Thanks for sharing....very cool....:regular_waving_emot

 

[addy1]

When I dove at grand cayman, they had a dive called the wall. You would go down this crevasse 125 feet deep at the end, coming out over the 2000 ft drop. When we came out over the drop off one of the huge manta rays was coming up out of the deep. Beautiful and unreal. The last time we were there they told us a hurricane had wiped it out. But the diving is still beautiful there. They are very protective of their reefs.