Yes fish can and do jump..I lost a few last year when I was cleaning my pond..they jumped out of the bucket and I had no idea until it was to late..I'm not sure how low you should keep it but they do/can jump :(

I'm so frustrated that I didn't know that! I had been keeping the water level as high as I could because I knew I probably put too many fish in the whiskey barrell and I wanted to give them as much water as possible. (6 feeder fish). I guess I'll let it get a couple of inches below the top and see if it happens again. Of course, the one that jumped was the prettiest one!

Did he have a cut on him? I've had something like a cat pull one out of a whiskey barrel, and just leave it on the ground, with just a little cut on it.
So sorry for your loss.

From what I could tell, he was perfectly in tact. I also have the whiskey barrel in a corner literally right up against a huge window by my living room. I watch it constantly becuase it's still so new and I love it. I think I would have noticed an animal fishing. I have also never seen a cat in our neighborhood, which surprises me. I see lots of rabbits, but nothing else, yet. We do live in kind of a country area, so I'm sure the wildlife isn't too far away!

Its such a shame when you loose one of your pets, and like others of you, my fish are my pets, sorry for your loss.

Its not the best fix for this situation, and it can be less than attractive, but a net stretched across the top of the barrel should provide you with some relief from both the fish jumping and wildlife getting into your barrel.

some nets are really fine and would be less visible, and keep the fish inside, but wont prevent some wildlife as well.

Best of luck

They jump for a lot of reasons. It can be parasites, warm water, crowding, low oxygen, spawning, fear and a bunch of other causes. The net is your best bet. In a whiskey barrel there should be, at most, two very small fishies.

Hello, you I don't think you mentioned if you have any filtration, or a way to get 02 into your container. Another thought is how warm the water is. Goldfish prefer cool temps, if your container gets sun it may be creating a hot tub for your fish. With that many fish in your container you might have high amonia and ph which also makes for unhappy fish. There is an aquarium rule of thumb for how many fish to keep in a tank or in this case a container. Somthing like - you need for every inch of fish, 3 inches of surface volume. This has to do with exchanging gases on the surface of the water. You may want to do frequent partial water changes. My other thought was that I wouldn't reduce the water, but definetly would put some type of screen over top. Goodluck they are lots of fun to watch.

Netting will help. Ammonia will cause fish to jump. Aquariums 10 gals of water per 6 inches of goldfish.Pond surface area anything I've read says 2 square feet per up to 10" goldfish.

I got lucky last Father's day when a beautiful Koi my daughter got me jumped straight out of the pond after being in there for maybe 10 minutes.

I say lucky because I was standing right there and he bounced to my feet. He wasn't out for more then 5 seconds before I scooped him up and back in.

He's quieted down since and living happily with the rest of my fishies. I have a small 200 gallon in ground pond and I keep the water to within an inch of the top, so they could jump out easily, but they ain't that dumb.

He's not as lucky as a beautiful butterfly koi I was acclimating to my fish tank the previous month: that one managed to push aside a book I had on his holding pot and took me 45 minutes (at least) to find him under all the junk my wife keeps under the tank. He wasn't completely dead yet but he passed that night.

(Koi do tend to jump out the first day or so, or so I hear.)

How quickly would the water conditions get bad enough to make them jump? This is a brand new setup and the fish were only in there for 48 hours before he jumped. I now know that I put too many fish in the barrell, so I won't be replacing the dead one. That leaves me with 5 feeder goldfish. My hopes are to have an inground pond next summer so I can transfer these to the pond. I don't have a filter in the whiskey barrell, but I do have 3 water plants, and a spitter. How do I know if the water has too much amononia? The container does not get any sun at all. It is in full shade, but I do live in Tx and the thermometer that I have in the container shows the water to be hovering between 80-82. I think that's a little too warm, but I don't think there is any way for me to cool it down.

The first rule of fish keeping is if you take care of the water and the fish will take care of themselves.

By now your fish should be used to the container and probably will not jump, it's usually fear of a new place.

Ammonia is produced by fish waste. Eventually bacteria will grow that eat the ammonia and produce nitrite, which is also bad (but not as toxic). A little later other bacteria grow to eat nitrite and produce nitrate, which is plant food and your plants will eat it all up and close the cycle.

The unfortunate problem is can take 2-3 months for this bacteria to grow on it's own (and it will). But up until that time you can loose fish. It's called new pond (or tank) syndrome, and also referred to as "cycling" your pond. A cycled pond has a good colony of bacteria living in there, and it is the prime filtration of any pond or tank.

You can get test kits for all these chemicals at any pond or fish store. The strips are not as accurate as the drops but are OK to tell you if you have a problem or not.

Until you get your pond cycled your only real method of keeping your fish safe is frequent water exchanges. If you measure high ammonia then change enough water to make it safe again.

There are chemicals you can buy to "lock up" ammonia but I have no experience with them.

Click the link below.
I doubt if you would lose this guy!

Here is a link that might be useful: Giant Koi story