Fishes in the ponds stay in tranquillity, but it is the predators that threaten them. You might be thinking of who can threaten the naïve fishes in the pond except for the humans! But surprisingly, some visitors would look up to your fishes in the pond and prey them! Well, it turns out that these predators are something else who admire the fishes for a tasty meal.
It’s only natural that predators will prey on others. You will find them preying on everywhere inside your pond and causing harm to fishes, and we need to discuss protecting pond fishes from predators thoroughly so that you can prevent it!
Pond Fish Predators: Who are they?
First, we need to know who these predators are. Predators can range from birds to raccoons, and they can attack your naïve fishes regardless of whether your pond is shallow or deep.
Though individually, it could be a tiny statistic, predators cause the loss of millions of dollars all over the USA and Canada. Because of that economic importance, we need to think about how we can protect the fishes from predators.
Predators: From where?
To know how to avoid the predators, we need to think about where these predators come from and why! No matter where you live, there might be a plethora of predators for your fishes than you can think of.
Interestingly, if you live in suburban areas, the seasonal storms might bring the woodland predators, namely foxes, raccoons through the drain systems.
Nowadays, as the climate is going through a precarious change, animals that naturally stay in the jungle or isolated places, leaving their habitat and showing up in the residential area where there are fish ponds. And the dreadful part is, these animals start to prey on the fishes in the pond as their primary food source!
Predators: From birds to animals
To know how to protect fishes, we need to consider which animals are the predators for fishes. There are hundreds of predators, and they can prey on small fishes to large fishes. For instance, predators like raccoons, opossums, muskrats, beavers, otters, foxes, or even bears may eat your fish.
Furthermore, there are wild birds, and most of them will leave your pond alone, but there are some species you might need to deal with., for example, herons and kingfishers. You can nickname a heron as a killing machine because it can wipe out your fishes like koi in the pond entirely in a day.
The kingfisher mostly stays in the nearby trees and can take fishes out from the surface of the pond water with its long sharp beak. Guess what we did not discuss as predators? Amphibians such as frogs and the snapping turtles! Yes, they can be a predator for your pond fishes.
How to Protect Pond Fish from Predators
You can adopt several ways to save the pond fishes from carnivores. We need to discuss it thoroughly to understand which particular one you can use for your pond!
Pond construction
A popular way to protect the fishes is to take some steps before the ponds are made. For example, fishes in the shallow water ponds can easily be prey because of the easy access. So, what can you do about this? You can make your pond deep enough so that the predators do not get an easy way to get your precious fishes.
Another thing to consider during the pond construction is making it as steep as possible so that some predators would not be able to access their foods!
Restricting the predators
One easy and possible solution for your pond might be blocking predators’ attacks to the pond by fencing. This will restrict unwanted predators from coming near the pond. And thus, you can protect your pond from almost all predators except some birds and raccoons!
Decoys
Installing a decoy near your ponds can also keep the predators away. Let me tell you how to do that.
You make a statue or decoy that looks like a human and install it near your ponds. This will scare the predators and keep them out of your pond area. However, this might not sometimes work, though they are not as intelligent as us, they are too, in a small amount.
So, be cautious while using this method! But one crucial suggestion, move the decoy from time to time to make them more realistic. See, we are more intelligent!
Hiding places
Here is another way to keep your fish pond safe, which is to keep some dedicated place in the water so that the fishes can hide. This can be done by putting floating and submerged plants in the ponds like java moss. It can be a place for their hideouts from the predators and also be a place for resting during a burning hot summer day! You never know.
Use of alarm systems
Another possible solution is to take advantage of the up to date technologies. So basically, you install an alarm that will play a loud sound when the predators come near your pond. But one fundamental problem is it cannot differentiate between humans and predators. So be careful! This alarm can make you a predator!
Netting
The final possible solution we can suggest to you is installing pond nets. Pond nets can be handy to protect the fish ponds from any predators efficiently. Though it can reduce the beauty of your pond, it will successfully defend the ponds from the unwanted creature as well as it will keep away the leaves, litters from your pond.
Repellent
Applying repellent near the pond can be useful to keep away predators. The repellent creates bad taste and odor to ward off predators like raccoons and squirrels.
To summarize
By now, you have in-depth idea about protecting pond fishes from predators in a few simple steps.
You can employ either one or multiple of the above mentioned techniques according to your preference. In our opinion, using several methods in a combination would be much more systematic and effective.
We believe Netting is the best way to protect your pond as it will ultimately keep away all the predators from the fish ponds. Let’s not waste any time and secure your pond properly.
