River Murray Rainbow Fish

[taniaaust1]

I wasnt sure where to put this question as its another animals thou a part of the whole exclosure set up.

I brought 3 River Murray Rainbow Fish which arrived very lively. After floating them for 10 mins I put let them go into my frog pond to deal with a mosquito plague (1000s of wigglers) in it. I would of floated them in their bag of water for longer in there before releasing them but they came at a very time when I was running late for a medical appointment and I didnt want them in the esky longer as they'd alreadycome from interstate. They quickly disappeared in the water when I released them.

I spent a lot of time out there next few days, trying to see one of them and just when I started to think something had happened to them, after 3-4 days I finally saw one. It had coloured up nicely.. a green fish with a blue tail, it was chasing wigglers near surface of the water but quickly disappeared when it saw me A day later I thought I saw another one, more of a dull colour brown sticking its head out from something within the pond.

Since then thou I look daily several times., sitting by pond. Im yet to see them again. Its been 3? weeks without a sighting of them. Has anyone else got these, is it likely they are just hiding or has something probably happened to the fish? (I have small dragon fly lava which come out of the pond, these surely wouldnt eat a full grown murray river rainbow fish would they?) Are these fish just so shy that they are hard to ever seen in a pond? I havent even been able to spot them in the clear parts of the pond in the gaps between the plants. Im confused as when I read up on these it said they liked to feed from the surface.

I really really dont want to go pulling all the plants out of my pond to see if they are still there but if they arent, I need to get some more fish or those mosquitos are going to become a big issue.

Confused at what is probably going on with the fish...

[deranged chipmunk]

how big is the pond? from your description, you have it planted, so it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibilities that they are just hiding in the plants and feeding when you aren't there. most rainbows, that i am aware of, are smaller fish, so i wouldn't be surprised to not see 3 small fish in a pond on a regular basis. is the quantity of mosquito larvae decreasing at all? have you tried adding a pump to the pond? mosquitos prefer to lay their eggs in still or very slow moving water, so increasing turbulence in the pond may deter new egg deposits.

[taniaaust1]

You were correct. They were hiding. I have no idea how as the pond is outside of my window where I can see into it most of the day and when I had mosquito fish which were the same size or smaller, I could see them okay in there.

I went to great lengths in the end to try to find those rainbow fish. Some may find this story funny.

I took every single plant and rock out of the pond. Caught all my frogs and took them out (that one wasnt easy!! Swamp frogs swim well). I then bucketed most of the water out and scrapped all the dirt from the bottom of the pond with a container and then later used my hand.. allowing all the sediment to sink again so I could see bottom fairly well. No fish at all were to be seen so I became completely convinced they were gone.

I refilled pond and put everything back in. 5 days later I suddenly saw two of the murray rainbow fish chasing each other!!! I couldnt believe my eyes. How on earth did they hide from my nearly emptying whole pond out to look for them?

Then cause I'd emptied the pond like I had.. I'd messed the pond up and it then developed for the first time ever, horrid stringy green slime algae which coated over some of my more delicate plants so killed them. It was getting so thick I was worried the frogs would get caught in this and I was pulling it up in big slime handfuls but it would quickly grow again. So Ive had a nightmare trying to get my pond back to how it was!

I brought new plants of the ones which previously growing great before this slime issue occurred as I'd ruined obviously some delicate pond balance.. but they died too due to the slime. Im only now just starting to get the pond good again (I ended up putting benefical bacteria into the pond, maybe that helped as its got better some again since). All these troubles just over some fish!!

Lesson learnt, some fish are very very sneaky. Today Ive found the murray rainbow fish have had babies, I havent seen their parents since but I trust they are there. (I'd better not have missed a mosquito fish which I removed about 6mths ago) and I have my first naturally got there tabpoles in the pond too (neither of those were there yesterday).

Anyway, if anyone has Murray River Rainbow Fish in a pond, do not expect to see these fish thou they are "supposed" to be surface feeders. (I guess only saw them just after I'd cleared out the pond spashing around at surface.. cause they would of had no wigglers left to chase due to me emptying water out and clearing out sediment at pond bottom).