fish spawning ?

I need a little help here with fish reproduction. I tossed a few feeder
goldfish into my pond 5 years ago when I dug it. They produced a 2nd and
3rd generation each successive spring, and some of the original fish were
lost to racoons. There are currently 7 or 8 fish in the 600+ gallon pond, a
few from each generation.

My question is this: for the past 2 years, I've had no new generations.
Why?

The last 2 years, I started vacuuming the bottom of the pond regularly
during the growing season (no bottom drain); I'm just vacuuming the very
bottom at the deepest part. I've also added frogs/tadpoles the last 3 years
(6 tadpoles yielded 3 frogs over the years). And I have still seen the
chasing-the-one-fish-around activity that I assume was mating related.
There are plenty of plants in the pond year round (z5), including underwater
plants.

So? Is the chasing not mating? Do I just have all one sex? Are the
additional pond inhabitants eating the babies before I see them (there's
usually a dragonfly nymph or two in there by spring as well)? Am I
vacuuming them up? Do I need to pipe in some mood music next spring?

Dragon and damselfly nymphs will eat infant fish. The parents will eat the
eggs. If your frogs are bullfrogs they eat fish also.







kathy :-)
algae primer
http://hometown.aol.com/ka30p/myhomepage/garden.html

"Mike Miller" wrote in message
news:JHLSc.243686$%_6.66460@attbi_s01...
I need a little help here with fish reproduction. I tossed a few feeder
goldfish into my pond 5 years ago when I dug it. They produced a 2nd and
3rd generation each successive spring, and some of the original fish were
lost to racoons. There are currently 7 or 8 fish in the 600+ gallon pond, a
few from each generation.

My question is this: for the past 2 years, I've had no new generations.
Why?

The last 2 years, I started vacuuming the bottom of the pond regularly
during the growing season (no bottom drain); I'm just vacuuming the very
bottom at the deepest part. I've also added frogs/tadpoles the last 3 years
(6 tadpoles yielded 3 frogs over the years). And I have still seen the
chasing-the-one-fish-around activity that I assume was mating related.
There are plenty of plants in the pond year round (z5), including underwater
plants.

So? Is the chasing not mating? Do I just have all one sex? Are the
additional pond inhabitants eating the babies before I see them (there's
usually a dragonfly nymph or two in there by spring as well)? Am I
vacuuming them up? Do I need to pipe in some mood music next spring?


We've discussed this here before, but I will risk being called a sexist and tell
you that the females, and seen from above, are generally fatter, while the males
are slender. And with my school, the males are smaller as well, and usually
have longer fins, especially the tail fin. Make sure you have both sexes.