great diving beetle in goldfish pond

pickle61

i just need some advice please. i've got 2 garden ponds with goldfish, frogs, dragonfly nymphs, water boatmen and newts blah blah and a lively colony of alpine newts who've taken up residence and seem to like it here. everything seems to bumble along quite happily. yesterday i saw a great diving beetle pop up for air. now, my initial thought was "flippin' 'eck, look at the size of him but yeyy, great diving beetle too!" today i went to feed my fish, up pops great diver, took a breath then proceeded to bite the side of my fish! fish managed to shrug him off so then he went for another..... bitey little b***er! i lost quite a few fish last year with wounds on them, had the water checked and it was ok so now i'm wondering if it was him (or his dad). my question is "should he stay or should he go?" if he stays there will be trouble etc. etc.........

KeenOnGreen

When your goldfish and frogs eat your dragonfly nymphs, do you ask whether you should keep or get rid of them?  All of the creatures in your pond are part of a natural food chain.  Great diving beetles can fly, so even if you did manage to get rid of them, they will probably just come back (especially as your pond is their natural habitat).  

Totally understand why you are attached to some of the larger creatures (I would love to have newts and frogs in our ponds, but never have), but probably best to just let nature take its course.

pickle61

i know what you're saying but my ponds are completely manmade, there's nowt natural about them, much as i'd like to fool myself otherwise!  its a butyl liner, the plants are in baskets, its full of fancy goldfish which aren't native. i'm just lucky that all the other things have chosen to live here. i live right next to a large local park that has a 'fish sanctuary' which is a small lake area that comes off the main river, where fish can breed etc. its full of all sorts of aquatic wildlife; mr beetle would have a great life in there and i wouldn't have to let him feast on my £5 a pop goldfish! i'm probably asking the road i know but what's your thoughts on that as an alternative?

KeenOnGreen

I understand your sentiments @pickle61 We all get attached to plants and critters that we value (and may have bought and nurtured), and we hate to see them eaten or killed.  However it's not good practice (and possibly illegal) to take anything from one pond to put into another.  If it's a local authority pond, then it's almost certainly not allowed.

Shoving that argument aside for a second, there is nothing to stop the beetle (or one of it's relatives) from flying straight back into your pond.  It's not the answer you will want to hear, but if it were me I would just leave the wildlife in your pond to get on with it's business and whatever survives survives.  It could be worse, a passing stork might eat all of the fish in your pond, as has happened to many of my friends ponds.

pickle61

thanks keenongreen, i think you're probably right. i'll leave him be for now and see what happens. well i have had a heron popping down and snatching them but the worst offenders are the crows that come to feed off the birdseed; i've actually watched one turn his eye to my pond and before i could do anything, he'd whipped over, grabbed a goldfish and flew off! i was stunned, until i realised how naive i'd been to think that only certain birds would fancy a nice, tasty goldfish, doh! he wasn't daft either, a little while later he came back and went straight over to the pond looking for more. i now have a garden fence mesh/bamboo cane combo that sits over the top to protect them when i'm not in the garden.