Our outdoor pond was attacked by something and most of our fish are gone.

[Pagwatch]

We are really sad about it. We had some beautiful large goldfish breeds and all but three are gone.

We don't know what it was. We are in the centre of town so I am guessing a cat or fox maybe?

Any ideas about how to best protect the pond. Is a net best.

[EauRouge]

Oh, that is sad :( It's hard to say what it was, could have been a cat or a fox or maybe a heron, they crop up even in cities.

A net would be good, that would keep away most predators if you don't mind the look of it. Some floating plants would give them fish somewhere to hide and you could put in a couple of terracotta flower pots or some terracotta pipe to give them an extra bolt-hole. How deep is your pond? If the water is too shallow then it will be difficult for them to get away from predators. It should be at least a metre deep at the deepest part.

Here are some more tips.

[Pagwatch]

Thanks eau

It is about a meter at it's deepest point and we have floating plants covering more than half of it. We first realised it had been attacked because some of these had been lifted out. The pots idea is great thanks

I guess a net is the next step. I just don't want to get some more until I am sure we can keep them safe.

Thanks

[2kidsintow]

We are in a town and had kept pond fish for years with no problems. They were HUGE and happy in their pond. Then we had a heron attack and eat all of our best fish. It was a sad sight to see shredded fins etc on the top of the lattice that covered out pond (mostly to prevent the children from falling in, but also a handy perch for our cat who loved to watch the fish swim, without ever trying to catch them).
I'd vote for a heron being your problem as I've never seen any of our local cats have even the slightest luck in catching a pond fish.
Herons like to land next to the pond, then wade in, so a surround that stops them doing this (we've used some of those lawn edging things) is useful in stopping them getting to your fish.