Rita, I can't even imagine going out to my pond and not be able to see every one of my fish at any given time. I am sorry that you are missing your fish. Are you finished draining and are you positive they are really not there??Glenda

Yes, the stocktank is sitting there 100 per cent empty right now.

I don't know what I did wrong. I know lots of you have water gardens, not just fish ponds. I had really wanted a combo of both plants and fish but I wanted to be able to see my fish.

Rita, my only suggestion is to dig a bigger pond. I know that is not always an option for everyone, but I can imagine it is hard to have both in a smaller stocktank. Maybe you could get another stock tank and plant most of your plants in ther and just enough in the fish tank to give them shade, but still be able to see them. Glenda

Have you had a visit from a Heron Rita? They do sneak in when your not looking.

No, I am reasonably certain there was no heron. Oh well, everyone here told me at the begining of the summer that I had too many fish. I guess I don't have too many anymore.

Right now a bigger pond is not an option. I sure would like to have another pond but this was all I could manage for now. Just this putting it into the ground is quite an undertaking.

I had a skid of rocks, the flatter kind that one uses for stacked stone walls delivered and I plan on putting them around the pond. As the ground slopes down on one side that means that the far side will have more out of ground than the near side which is just slightly high to prevent runnoff.

Anyway have not gotten that far. Work progresses tomorrow again so will see how far I get.

How does a heron manage to fish in a stocktank above ground? My heron is very tall but not that tall. I didn't think they could stand on the narrow edge of the tank either. Now when you get it lower to the ground, that is another story. I would not be without a net even though I don't think the heron could get at my fish now the way the pond is built. But I still don't want to take a chance. This summer I took it off for a few weeks, but when I saw the heron fly away from the pond when I came out of the house, the net went back up. No missing fish. Glenda

Well, the stocktank pond is down in the hole the way its going to be. I have help doing this because there is no way a 61 year old woman could lift this thing. Now they are sorting thru the skid of rocks delivered yesterday because we are going to place the rocks around the pond. Because the ground is uneven and sloping down at the far side of the pond, the rock surround will be very low in some spots and needs to be built up lots in other spots.

Plus I had not really thought of a waterfall as it would not have worked aboveground. Now that its inground, There is room and the perfect spot for a waterfal so I haven't decided how I could add one in the future yet.

Great Blue Herons are big birds and could easily reach into a stock tank sitting on the ground. Kingfishers can also take fish leaving no trace as can bullfrogs. Raccoons tend to destroy plants and often leave traces of the fish.

Sorry for your loss, been there and done that.

It seems more likely to me to be racoons than herons. I mean, I am here most of the time and would surely have noticed anything as big as a heron. And I don't think they come at night. At any rate, its going to be in ground from now on so doesn't much matter anymore if a heron could or could not have reached above ground.

I am going to look into getting a net to put over the pond now to at least try and keep out the fall leaves that will be coming soon.

Finished for today. The side rocks are laid around. Now for the top rocks which will finish the edges. Going tomorrow morning to pick up those rocks. Its looking even better than I had expected and its going to look better yet as its done.

Will be posting the series of pictures when its finished.

I am so glad I decided to move it were it actually sits inground now instead of going for the easier fix and putting it more in the sideyard were it sat all summer. This part of the yard is nicely planted and the will be pond looks really, really wonderful there even if I do say so myself.

My stocktank is black, 300 gallon about 7 feet by 4-5 feet and 26 inches high.

Rita, in my indoor tank I had something similar happen with my tropical fishies. It seems that there are fewer of them as time goes by. But a little while ago I saw one of them nibble on something, it was the remains of one of the unlucky ones. I guess if one dies and I don't notice, the other fish will consider it a source of protein?

About a waterfall, you could combine that with the idea of a second container for some of your plants. My DH and I have a few preforms in the garage for when we "get around to it", the plan being that they will cascade into each other and the water from the lowest one gets pumped back to the top. You could get a small preform maybe, end-of-season discount of course, and place it a little bit higher and let water fall from it into your main pond. Look for one that has a lip so the water falls nicely without you having to do anything for it. Then put some of your many plants in it, and it will even be functioning as a filter.

:) Mary

I also had a fish that died and wasn't noticed until water was drained down for a water change and found her in one of the plant baskets. She was a Shubunkin about 9-10 inches long. The other fish had been eating the flesh, but there was just enough still left to see which one it was. But the whole bone carcass was there and intact. I would think that Rita would have found some bones. Glenda

No bones but my fish are not very big. 4 inches would be the biggest. The way my stocktank had been set up, I kept it very full and if there was lots of rain it filled all the way up and would overflow. I am wondering now if that would have anything to do with it. I would not have thought so but I am still trying to figgure out what happened to my fish.

Now with it being inground after the last row of rocks goes on, I don't think the fish will be able to jump out even if its very full.

I went and picked out nice rocks for the last row to put on the top of the pond this morning and they should be delivered this afternoon.

Not much progress today. Went this morning to pick out the stones for the ones going round the top. Had to find a pallet of just the right size (mostly) plus that looked like what I wanted. Then they were going to deliver them in the afternoon and showed up around 4 PM. By the time they got unloaded and messed around with the rocks some, it was too late to get much of anything else done.
We did start to set some of the stones around for the overhang just to get the idea of the look and it just does look absolutely stunning. Plus since the concrete was dry from setting the rocks around the sidewalls I just filled up the pond with water now. It only had alittle on the bottom after we set it in the hole so I could see that it really was level.