How many froggies in a pond?

[CMW]

We have just set up our first pond.  It is 23' x 11' and currently inhabited by four Koi, a LARGE fancy goldfish and six quickly growing feeder goldfish we used as canaries.  The other EXPLODING population  is water frogs. 

We have not seen any tadpoles but it seems every day that there is another frog sunning itself on a rock, hanging off the water plants or lurking on the bottom.  None appear to be large enough to pose any sort of threat to the fish but I am wondering if there comes a point when we should start rounding up our amphibian tenants and relocate them to another source of water (I would not do anything to hurt them)?

We were just away for a few days and I  noticed raccoon paw prints on our deck by the pond.  No fish are missing so....it is possible they are working at keeping the frog population down? Also, someone overturned our water lily pot int he bottom of the pond and it had a fair bit of gravel on top of the soil.

I like frogs  , esp in the morning when you can touch them on the nose without them splashing away, but the main purpose for the pond is to  have fish.  I just want to know if there is a limit to how many frogs I should allow in the pond before their presence has an adverse impact on the fish  .

Thanks,
c

[RedFish]

Somehow I expect that moving frogs to another location and expecting your pond to have fewer frogs would be like trying to catch water with a net!
I would think that they will sort themselves out?   I know when I asked the various owners on the pond tour about frogs, they all just laughed and said they had lots, and did I want some?   But no-one did anything about them.

[babblefish1960]

The frogs will balance out eventually, as they are ruled both by food availability and being eaten themselves.  If your koi are large enough, they should be eating them as tadpoles at the least.

Your fish will be fine, frogs won't hurt them, and whatever is eating the frogs, will find them easier to catch than the fish anyway.

Nice size pond by the way, how deep is it?

[kennyman]

Once the snakes start hanging around the frog population tends to drop 

I saw a bullfrog eating a leopard frog at work the other day. Rather gory but just part of the way things go I suppose. But the main issue I have with frogs has got the be spring cleaning. Many of them don't make it though winter in ponds with a liner and have to be cleaned out. It is probably the worst part of pond maintenance.

[CMW]

Ah, nature at it purest.  I guess the frogs will be happy...which in turn should keep the raccoons happy and well enough fed to leave our fishies alone.

The ponds is <24 inches deep.  I wanted a 48" section.  That was until I read the City of Ottawa Bylaws and learned that anything 24" or more requires the same fencing as a pool.  We are trying to blend things into our lot (2 acres, 1/2 of which we have left in the original forest) so installing a fence was not in the plan.

I have been told that I can overwinter in this pond.  I do not think I will try it this year though.  We have set up a tank inside (2 shibunkins keeping it going for now) that will be adequate housing for them this winter at least and possibly next...though some of our feeders will have to find new homes next year if they keep growing at the rate they are.

So far we have not seen tadpoles.  I wonder if we are still just attracting existing frogs from the area.  Well, our neighbours just put in a pool so perhaps the frog population will find that attractive as well, at least until they taste the cholorine 

We have a few different depths in the pond, ranging from the roughly 2 foot right up to a place on each end where anything non-aquatic that falls in can walk right out.  We have started adding plants in and around the pond.  We still have a lot of work to do before it is finished.  This is our first real summer in the house and I am looking at it as a 20 year landscaping plan.  We are trying to get the basic bones down this year and will them work on expanding it each year hereafter.  We only finished the grading and brought in the final soil late last fall. 

I really wanted to go on the pond tour this summer but ended up in a scheduling conflict.  Sigh...

After that round'about ramble, thanks for the info on the frogs and I will let them be.  I guess next year I will just have to add more fish and either overwinter in the pond or upgrade to an indoor pond for overwintering.

Cheers,
c

[CMW]

Once the snakes start hanging around the frog population tends to drop 

I saw a bullfrog eating a leopard frog at work the other day. Rather gory but just part of the way things go I suppose. But the main issue I have with frogs has got the be spring cleaning. Many of them don't make it though winter in ponds with a liner and have to be cleaned out. It is probably the worst part of pond maintenance.

The snakes have already started arriving.  I had to evict one from the workshop last week.  I was a little to comfortable with him and he got me with a fang.  It felt like little more then a snag on a raspberry thorn, but he did manage to draw blood.

As for cleaning out the failed hibernators in the spring...UGH!

We actually put dirt in the bottom of our pond, and then covered it with river wash gravel.  I figure there must be a good 4-6" of mud covered by a decent layer of stone.  We are thinking of taking all that out in the spring....maybe we should leave it, would that be enough to keep the froggies from freezing to death in the winter?

c

[KLKelly]

I would love to set up a pond.  When I asked on another forum about mixing fancies with shubs I was told this was cool if I could ensure the fancy could get enough food and only if they were a male.  I guess the male commons/shubs could easily kill the female because they are ultra fast and hurt the female or tire her to death.  I think I'll stick to just the single tail variety for outdoors.

I think the frogs and tadpoles (in moderation) would be neat.

[CMW]

KLKelly

Could you tell me more about mixing or not mixing goldfish and shibunkins (I am guessing that is what a "shub" is?)?

I am told that the goldfish is a fancy goldfish.  I do not know whether it is a he or a she.  So far he (we have been calling him Clover because he hid in the plants in the tank) is the biggest fish by quite a bit.  When he first went into the tank with the little feeders I think they were afraid he would eat them.  I would say that, sans-tail, he is about 8-10 inches long.

The next addition was a roughly 7" standard Koi (Rocky - we adopted him from Rockland and have not been very original in naming the fish).  Those two are great buddies and adding him to the tank calmed down the feeders for some reason.

The next addition were three shibunkins.  Sadly we had to euthanize one just last week as it became very ill, wasted away and was not responding to medication.

We moved the feeders out to the pond. A week later we moved the two big guys out and then about a week later we added a 4" or so butterfly Koi (Fancy Pants - I did say we give bad names to fish).  Just this past week we have added two more butterflies one about 3 1/2" and the other probably 5".  The five larger fish hang out together.

As for the feeders, one has emerged as the leader.  We call him Spot and the rest we just refer to as his Posey (a few do have names but they always move in a group).

When they were inside the Shibunkins seemed to hang out with the small feeder goldfish and left everyone else alone.  We did have a BNPleco in there with them that lasted less then two weeks though and just turned up dead one morning for no apparent reason.

Have you heard anything about Shibunkins that would suggest they pick on other fish and could have caused the BN's death?  There were no obvious marks on him, but he was a little thin.

c

[KLKelly]

I'd love to help identify him.  Here is a thread from the goldfish and aquarium board on growth and development but it labels the different types of fish.  Fancies are normally double tailed goldfish.  Some of the GAB gang have very large fancies 8+ inches without their tails.  I think the site is down for maintenance though.  Here's the link anyways: http://thegab.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1752

Shubs = shubunkin.  I love the calico ones.

Regarding the bn pleco - probably he didn't get enough food.  I don't think they survive on just algae alone and single tailed goldfish probably ate every ounce of food as fast as they could.  They are big pigs.

Koivet is another good site for koi health info.  I have seen amazing koi on forums.  I would love the butterfly koi and something called a shusui - they have a line of black scales down their back like the one in this picture:  http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z144/wonga316/20070719%20-%20Sold%20koi/IMG_0860.jpg

I am not sure if koi's get flukes but the GAB forum recommends treating all goldfish for gill flukes.  This probably isn't possible in a pond but might be something you should do when they are inside for the winter.

I'd love to hear what kind of fancy you have.  If it is a female and any of your single tails are male - even though she is big I think you would have to keep her with other fancies.

[The Pond Boy]

Congratulation with your new pond. I read you did sand in the bottom of your pond, this is very unusual to do this. And as far as I know, there is also no need for it. It will be a pain in the spring/fall when you do a cleaning. A pond 2 feet is deep enough to survive the fish in the winter. If you have a lot of trees around your pond, you have to do a fall cleaning in the fall to get the debris and leaves out of the bottom of your pond. Then you install a heater to keep a hole in the ice. An other possibility is to put the pump in the pond and use it as a mini fountain.

In our pond 18'x30', we have about 40 fish. Fantails, shubunkins, comets and koi. The smallest is about 1.5" to 15". If they spawn you don't keep the type of fish original when you have them all together is one pond. For me no problem. Another problem is with spawning (that will happens mostly in May/June) that you will get also uncolored (brown) fish in your pond. When you do the spring/fall cleaning, that is a good time to "call" then and take the uncolored fish out of your pond. We keep always 4-5 uncolored fish in our pond.

Frogs are always nice to see in your pond. I personal don't like the tree frogs because they make at night so much noise. Also the bull frogs aren't welcome in our pond because they will for sure eat small fish. The same with turtles.

Racoons are your biggest enemy at your pond. They will sit at night at the side of your pond and if there comes a fish close to them, they will scoop it out with their foot and eat it. When this happend, there is a fish gone and worse in all your fish are shocked. We could very easy pet our koi in our pond, but a racoon eat one fish a couple of months ago and the fish are still scared if they see us.

Koivet is a good side. You can find here a lot of good information written by Dr. Erik Johnson. He is a famous fish vet. I met him a month ago at the pond college in Chicago The forum on Koivet is down for the last 2 weeks. Another good forum is http://www.aquascapeinc.com/messageboard/index.php .

We got our pond 4 years ago and had the first couple of years a big problem with algae. The water was always green and the pond was covered with algae. Found out a way to keep our pond clear and kill the algae. I went this summer for one week to a pond college in Chicago and learned there a lot about ponds, fish and plants. If you have any questions or problem with your pond, please don't hesitate to contant me.
Thanks,

The Pond Boy,
Greg

[The Pond Boy]

Here is also a good link with the different types of goldfish: http://www.kokosgoldfish.com/ftypes.html
Thanks,

The Pond Boy,
Greg