Pond is murdering fish!

[feemia]

How do you keep fish from being sucked into the plumbing of your pond? It has a bottom drain which is connected to two pumps, each of which moves water to one of my husband's twin waterfalls.

Yesterday I brought home some feeder goldfish, about 3" each, and I piled some rocks around the bottom drain before turning on the pump/waterfall. This morning my husband found two of the fish in one of the pumps and the others are MIA. I felt so guilty when he told me this morning. Last month I put in a few extra platies and they disappeared very quickly as well.

[06scoob]

sounds like you need a piece of screen or something then cover it with rocks so that the fish dont get sucked down?

[GoldLenny]

Any filter system or skimmer should have a grate or guard over the intake section... and not just right over the opening but large enough so that the grate is a few inches away from the intake. The openings in the grate should be small enough to keep the smallest fish out of the intake or keep the smaller fish in floating laundry baskets until they are large enough to be safe in your pond.

[inck243]

We have a pre-filter just like this

http://www.pondsetc.com/images/littlegiant_566159_small_160_160.jpg

It attaches to the pump intake; there is a mesh filter along the insides and top and we have 2 rocks in the middle which keep it weighed down.

It works pretty well except when the neighbors dog jumps in the pond and detaches it... we lost some baby fish that way too :(

[jm1212]

try looking for a giant sponge.