My pond - baby fish, scared fish

[jimi]

Hello. Firstly a little bit about my pond. It is about 4' deep at deepest, about 8' wide and about 13' long in a kind of oval shape. I previously had a smaller pond on the same site, but it was smaller, and poorly constructed.

About two years ago I decided to add two baby koi to my old pond, and one died in about 3 days, and one is still alive and healthy now (and has grown rather large). Then after a few months this old pond sprang a leek and I decided to rip the whole thing out and start again since I wanted a slightly bigger one anyway. So I put all the fish (I have some goldfish too) into a large barrel and they did fine in there for about 8 or 9 months until I finally got round to making the new pond.

So I made this new pond about 8 months ago now, and it has done remarkably well. I put a small amount of plants in there and they have grown excellently, and the water is perfectly clear.

The pond weed has grown so that it covers the vast majority of the pond, but I have always kept a clear area to feed the fish in.

Recently, they have become ridiculously scared and shy, and spend all their time in the weed. When I feed them, I have to wait absolutely ages until they will enter the clear area, and they will all come to eat the food but grabbing it quickly and darting around in a really scared way. They will only eat with each other, and come and go in waves of darting around eating, and diving back under the weed and waiting for awhile before coming back up together. It is very frustrating since they did not used to do it. They used to swim around wanting to be fed and not being at all shy. The single koi just acts as one of the goldfish, but it is starting to dwarf them now. I don't know why they are doing it, but they don't seem to be getting any better. I have a net over the pond so I don't think they can be getting attacked by anything.

The goldfish always used to breed in the old pond but their numbers seemed to remain under control. However, in this new pond there are literally hundreds of baby fish, and they are growing and don't seem to be falling in number. Thinking about it, I don't think they have any predators. The pond hasn't been there long enough to have many wild things living in it which could eat the baby fish, and they are now big enough that they wont be eaten by the other fish. There are just loads of fish about 2/3rds of an inch long everywhere you look in the pond. It seems to me like they are nearly all going to survive to be adults, in which case I will have an absolutely ludicrous amount of goldfish. (I say goldfish as a broad term, I'm not sure if it is right. They are all different colours, some are gold, but some have big tails and there are all sorts of colours and shapes of them).

So I have two questions; Does anyone know why my fish might have become so scared, and am I right to be worried about being over run by goldfish. Also, how easy is it to sell goldfish? Or even give them away? Or will they suddenly start dying?

[RogerMcAllen]

I am not sure why they are so shy. I would usually suggest a dither (an active fish to help bring the others out into the open), but I would imagine any new fish would join the others in hiding.

I think you have a valid concern with being over run. Goldfish are impossible to sell (unless they are of some size, 4-6" maybe). You might be able to give them away to fellow ponders in your area. Smaller ones can be given away as feeders. Unless something is really wrong, they should not just start dying.