What other kinds of pets can I add to my pond that won't eat goldfish fry?
I have a large enough pond I can add many more critters to it. I just have about 40 small comets, a few other kinds of goldfish, and about 5 baby koi. If they do have fry, I don't want to add something that will eat that. And I don't want to add an animal like crabs or crayfish or turtles that will outright catch and kill the goldfish, unless there are some vegetarian varieties. But is there some other friendly pets to add in the pond that are interesting to have?
So how many gallons is this pond? What type of filtration? Will it still be adequate when the 40 small comets are each 8" long and the 5 koi are 24" long? But to answer your question, tiny fish are food to everything.
The pond is about 20k gallons, a 8k gallon wetland filter, so I think its adequate size for the fish load. I plan to also add approx. 20-30 baby Orandas, then should be done stocking it.
I don't know how your filtration is set up, but if you really want the fry to survive, the breeders lay out mats along the bank and remove the eggs to hatch them in safe tanks. Even if you have plenty of hiding places for the fry, small fish are likely to get sucked into the filtration. A couple of years ago I was regularly finding 2" goldfish in my sieve when I flushed it. Of course, having said that, Nature finds a way. Plenty of people complain of goldfish having too many babies and overstocking the pond. Just have plenty of hiding places. Good luck and let us know how it goes.