The Murderous Cave

Well, tragedy struck late last week.  During a windy storm, a tree branch fell into my fish pond, knocking a stone cave down.  Unfortunately, one of my larger gold fish was inside and got pinned down.  It was a very sad thing to find, knowing he had gotten trapped and I wasn't around to possibly free him.

So I just wanted to tell all the pond builders out there to be careful with how you construct your underwater caves and dwelling for our swimming friends.  This cave has been like this for over seven years but a freak accident caused it to collapse.  If you are going to build a few caves for your fish to hide in, be sure they have sturdy, base rocks and a top rock that can't flip if anything should fall against it.  I actually began removing more of my caves just be sure this thing doesn't happen again.  You can purchase waterfall spray-foam that fills in the gaps around rocks to keep the water flowing over the rocks rather than seeping behind them.  I'm wondering if this foam, being non-toxic would be worth using to connect seams as you build simple caves.  A means of adhering the rocks together to give them further strength.  I'll have to do a bit of research.

All of these fish are about 6+ years old. 

Here are my "guys" a day or so afterward when things were cleaned up around the pond and excess vegetation trimmed.  Wow, I never realized how much overgrowth was hiding this wonderful feature till I really got in there and cut stuff back.  It's nice to have it be more of a focal along this pathway.  Too bad this incident is what prompted some action.

So, beware of your caves.  Be sure they are "structurally sound" to keep a safe environment for your fish.