Sorry for your loss. Orandas are my favorite goldie. Unfortunatly for them (and all of the heavy round bodied goldies) they tend to move slow and are easy prey. Raccoons usually make quite a mess of the pond when they fish, knocking over plants and tearing things up. If there was no mess, I'd say it wasn't a raccoon. Cat is a big possibility. Bird...not too likely at night, although herons do fish at dusk and dawn so they may have come in early. A floating alligator works great for detering herons. I doubt it will scare a raccoon or cat though. A net over the pond is probably the best defense. For land critters (raccoon, otter, cat), an electric fence wire around the edge of the pond works great although it is inconvenient. I don't know if scarecrows work at night but that would scare a cat away, although probably not a raccoon. I hate predators!!

Thanks for the input. I ended up putting up a net. Yes, Orandas are my favorite also. Miss him. We do get attached to our fish. Only thing about the net is that I have a submerged filter box, which has to be cleaned out now and then. That is where the net is a pain. I am going to come up with some type of covering that is easily removable yet attractive, using the net I put up yesterday. Now I am wearing my creative hat.... If I come up with something grand, I will post a pic. Also thinking about building a mini skippy filter to replace the submerged filter.

Thanks again. Happy ponding!

D

Sadly, orandas are easy prey even for animals/birds that can't catch comets or other faster swimmers who can dive deep quickly.

Make sure your pond has somewhere for them to hide, plant cover or a floating island planter, something so it isn't totally exposed to view.

I've had an electric fence against raccoons for years. They do make a terrible mess. They routinely trash my container ponds and small liner ponds even though there are no fish.

I have seen a kingfisher swoop down and carry off a six inch plus sized fish. It was very early in the morning. He nearly cleaned me out until I added a large floating island planter and a lot of floating plants. Unfortunately one seems to have got me this past winter as almost all of my fish are gone without a trace.

Bullfrogs and water snakes also leave no trace and no disturbance of plants.

Cats may be attracted to an oranda wiggling at the surface, and might get lucky but isn't likely to eat it without leaving fins and scales. I lost a fan tail that way years ago but the cat played with it and bit it but didn't eat it.