Mysterious fish

I've cleaned my pond today and discovered a new fish in it. Ive got upper pond that overflows into a small stone stream that runs into the bottom pond from there it pumps into a canister filter that overflows into the top pond again. In Desember I've emptied both ponds cleaning them out to start over again. I've also replaced the cotton in the canister filter.In January I've placed 4 Gold fish in the upper pond and a few Platy's in the bottom pond, I took the platy's out of my tropical tank for being sick and just dropped them in the pond. One goldfish died the one jumped out and the other one dissaperred, so I've got one yellow goldfish left. Today I discovered a bronse colour gold fish in the bottom pond. I've bought the house last year May and the previous owner had fish in the top pond but they took them out when they moved out. The only way possible is if the previous owner fish had babies. One baby fish got sucked up by the pump into canister filter survived in the canister filter and finds it way through the filter medium and back in the top pond again. Jumping out of the top pond and findings its way through the stone stream and back again in the bottom pond. I don't know if any of you guys had any fish showing up?

 

Wow interesting.

 

Thats one mystery you got there.

 

wow very interesting story, that little fish must be a real surviver

 

very interesting! Something similar also happened in my parents koi pond.. we only put in Koi and some comets in the pond, but after sometime we also found a school of small, almost black / grey / silvery fish, around an inch in length fishes. didn't know where they came from, they just magically appeared.

 

Had similar experience when we had a breeding pair of Vlei Kurpers in our pond.
The pump is in the pond and pumps to a veggie filter plant basket which overflows into the pond.
I found some of the Kurper fry in the veggie filter, so either the small fry survived the pump impeller or some of the eggs got sucked up in there.

 

And believe it or not cleaned the pond again the weekend and the second mysterious fish appeared!! Going to try and catch them the weekend to take a photo and place it on the thread.

 

Just as a side note, fish are able to survive being pumped around so long as they can fit through the impeller. There is a raw water dam near a coal plant in Mozambique which has miraculously been stocked with Tiger fish. The only way they could have got there is via the river pumps feeding the dam. There is now also a resident crocodile which puts a dampener on the fishing prospects though, but he could have walked there. I also have a video of 15cm trout being pumped around a trout farm in the USA - their standard way of moving fish from one pond to another. I think the performance for the pump design was 99% undamaged fish....

 

Fish eggs can also be carried by birds so another possibility on the Tigers

 

that's epic story now if only 8 tinfoil barbs +- 13cm could land in my tank that would be epic lol
I'm not to picky lol

 

Amazing. I had a similar experience with a tank, not a pond..

I cleaned out my Tetratec ex700 canister about 6 weeks after a new install. Between tray 2 and 3 (inside the canister) I found a live White Cloud and between tray 3 and 4 I found two more. they were stunted and very dull but alive ! they went right back into the tank and are still alive today. Some fish are tough little buggers.