Happy Ponds- the upside of ponding

Hi Oberon,
Water tamp was 76 today so they are still eating like pigs. Babies are growing right along. First winter I had them I didn't know they stopped eating but they did so I stopped feeding them. My husb. hates cold weather and he says the fish are
like him they don't like the cold so they quit eating.
When water gets down to 50 they will stop eating. Smart little things. They understand their digestive systems better than I do.
Happy Thanksgiving and stay warm

Happy Thanksgiving to you also.

Hope everyone had a truly blessesd Chrstimas. I'm happy when all my family gets together. Only 1 missing was Cal. son and his fam.
I got a new all white koi for my birthday from youngest son. Unfortunately he forgot to turn his pump back on on his pond overnight and lost his prized red & white one and one other.
MERRY MARY he asked me to call you and see if you had one he could buy. PLEASE let me know. It was his favorite Creamsickle. All his other fish are fine.
IIf you don't have any I am going to give him mine. He loves his fish and tries to take good care of them.
I often forget to put my pump back on after feeding but it has never bothered any fish. Guess its becaause its bigger pond and retains more oxygen.
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL
Bonnie

Carolyn, this must be strange to you. One thread is bemoaning 33F water and snow/ice, and Bonnie's son lost fish due to hot weather. Just plain weird.

You both are on such opposite places with opposite weather conditions......

We finally had a hard freeze on the pond last night. Found out the oldest of the deicers died, so had to run out and get another one. We got lucky, it was the last one that Tractor Supply had. By this afternoon, the ice on the pond was just slush. I would be happy if this was the worst we got all winter, but I know that I tend to live in denial when it comes to winter weather.

Mary - I have to tell you, the first part of what you wrote about with the car and the block and heater, reminded me of some of my husband's stories about winter. He grew up in Watertown NY. We commonly refer to it as Siberia, but I think you are living closer to Siberia.....

My husband's mother grew up in Binghamton NY. She became a nurse and studied at Bellevue hospital. She didn't mention bad winters so maybe that is more southern than Watertown.

Mary

It is quite a bit south from Watertown. Binghamton NY is about 45 minutes north east of me. They tend to have it a bit cooler than we have it and for some reason, it always seems to be rotten weather when you have to go to the EA Link Airport in Binghamton.

Bonnie, I'll certainly take a look and see if I have one that looks like his old one. Can you give me a better description? If I don't have a match, I certainly have plenty of other koi! I need to drop off your blue baby anyway! How big is his pond, so I know what size he can handle?

Oh how nice! I was just out looking at my pond. It froze over briefly the day before yesterday. We found that one of our deicers was not working. Thankfully, Tractor Supply had one left. The pond is now covered with slush.....

I can see my babies sitting at the bottom of the pond. Every once in a while I see movement. Can't wait until I can sit outside with them, although it is warm enough to sit outside....

Merry Mary,
Check your D-mail please.
Bonnie

Guess what--tonight we are supposed to go down to 32 degrees and tomorrow nite 28. All my tropical plants are wrapped with landscape blankets. I told all the fish to head for the bottom and stay there until it warmed up. it was so warm today they all ate. i'm mainly concerned about the babies. i sure hope they stay ok.
Bonnie

You must finally be getting the beginning of what started for us in Fairbanks over Christmas, maybe. We have a daytime of 4F, with -5F at night. At least for now.

Bonnie - what are your water temps and how large are your pond? I would think the warmth from the day would keep the water from reaching the freezing point.

We are supposed to go down to the single digits tonight. Not looking forward to tomorrow morning..

The fish should be ok, don't feed them for the next few days....and don't turn any of the pumps off. The plants are going to suffer. I have way to much to cover and/or bring in. I'll do my best with what I can. Blah... I vote that Florida never drops below 40.

I never turn the pumps off and didn't feed them this morning and won't until temp goes back up. My water thermometer is floating around someplace in the pond but the fish let me know when its too cold to eat.
let's hope for the best for our plants and fish.
Bonnie

It is 5 degrees here - I did see last night where we are supposed to be back into the 40's by the weekend. It cannot happen soon enough for me. Ugh! It is cold!

Amazing. it is 6.8 here @ 9:30am

Mary/Bonnie -

How have your ponds fared? I now have ice on my pond, but we are supposed to be 47 degrees here today. Wishing I was home so I could be outside.

Mine did very well. I never turn the pumps or filters off, they run all year. The only thing that suffered was my tropical fish, which when in the edges of the big pond, usually survive, but I currently have them in smaller preformed ponds up on my deck. Even though there are smaller pumps and filters in there, it was just too cold, and most are goners...as well as my tadpoles. The surface of the water lily tubbies froze, so the leaves are gone, but they will resprout as the weather warms, and once they go into the new bigger pond. If I ever get the new bigger pond done, lol !

Oh, new pond pics. Yay!!!

Ran away for couple of days to my friends ranch. Love to ride over the 900 acres and look for birds, wild turkey and deer.
Immediately checked my fish when I got home today and fed them as water was warm enough.
Merry Mary, please measure along side of your house and if you have 70" I can get my Kubota into your back yard. Would like to see the location first to determine where dirt can be piled thats dug out etc. It's time you got going on your larger pond before hot weather sets in. I'm sure you will need a lot of shoveling but the Kubota can do a lot of initial digging. I'm sure I can borrow a smaller trailor to haul it on as ours is way too big. I told you I would help dig your pond and I will. You just name the time. I marked my ground layout with orange spray paint and that sure helps. Just let me know ahead of time to arrange for trailor.
Bonnie

Our last pond was dug with friends and their kubota. DH and I had all the fixings for a party- It was a lot of fun and all the work was finished in one day.

Hi Oberon & Carolyn,
So far so good. A few plants have curled up brown tipped leaves on the top but closer to bottom look fine. No pruning until March. Learned that the hardway. We usually have freezes in Feb.
Fish are all swimming around happy so I'm happy and thankful. We had a beautiful sunny day today which is good cause I removed all the landscape blankets yesterday but kept them on ground right in front of plants they go to. I'm sure they will have to be covered again before winter is over with. Hope all your fishies are doing OK.
Bonnie

Temp here today was 79 and fish in all ponds came right up to eat. One black & orange koi in goldfish pond jumped stright up out of water and looked like it was doing a peorett when I walked by the pond. Guess he was doing his happy dance or whatever. Good thing he was in the middle.

Bonnie, that's funny. My fish get excited when I go out to feed them, and last year one of them just flew out over the edge in his moment of leaping madness. He landed on the deck and just looked at me like "well this is awkward"....I just picked him up and put him back in. I envisioned the other koi calling him a knucklehead under water while he swam to the corner to pout.

ROTFL

Mine always seemed to jump more when we open up the pond after a long winter's nap. Then they tend to settle down....

Hi All,
Fish that did the leap was dead today. Same pond other one was in that died. That pond is joined to little pond that has babies in it. I examined it thoroughly. No visible signs of any infection, crud or ulcers on skin. Must be someting internal. I am thinking of adding salt to that pond tomorrow. Both fish that died were koi in with goldfish. Never had a problem with that before so not convinced its the goldfish. Both fish were about 10".
Hope this isn't a trend.
Bonnie

Hmm....

That's very odd....

No recent yard chemicals (fertilizer, bug spray, etc)?
No overload of acorns, leaf drop, grass clippings, mulch?
No chlorine from a hose?

If none of the above holds true:

Start with salt....salt can't harm anything but a few leaves on some water plants. Watch how much you feed them on days where the water stays cool at night. Their metabolism has changed a bit with the cooler on and off Florida temps. High protein foods should be eliminated until consistently warm (both water and air) If you can't find cheap lower protein food (under 36%) then Cheerios are a clean grain based occasional food. Of course stop feeding them when it's cold. Frozen green peas add a little vitamin C to their immune system, and are a healthy veggie alternative (especially if they have food stuck in their guts from a lowered metabolism that isn't allowing them to digest food properly.

There is a clay powder that can be added to their food pellets, that also helps their digestion and adds missing minerals to their system.

If salt and reinforcing their cold weather diet isn't working....I'd then order some medicated food. Ebay has the best priced antibiotic food. I would do partial water changes, just to make sure the water parameters are balanced. After a week of a salted pond, I'd do a partial water change and add healthy bacteria again.
With no signs of infection (sores, ulcers, fin rot, etc) it's either the water, a gill problem, or parasites. Parasites tend to show up when the water is warmer.....gill problems are hard to diagnose without a microscope and gill scraping (and you reported no gasping for air at the surface or hanging out at the water fall ) so I'm going back to water quality or food stuck in the tummy (it builds up gasses in their system)

Bonnie

Do you have a kit for checking your water parameters? I know if my ph gets a bit high, my fish will jump. And as Mary stated, salt won't hurt anything other than a few leaves.

Food is Tetra Premium diet for Koi and goldfish and all I can see on the bag under analysis is Min. crude protein, min. crude fat, max. crude fiber, max. moisture, min. phosphorus, min. ascorbic acidwhich is vit. C. I scoop out leaves every day but there isn't a lot. None of the first 3 causes you mention Mary. If leaves were the cause I would think the fish in the pond with the waterfall would be effected also. It's the pond with the fountain.
When I went out this morning to check them a baby had evidentally swam up the culvert against the current cause he was in fountain pond. Guess he wanted to join the big boys.
I'm going to put salt in, check parameters and STOP feeding. We shall see what happens.
Thanks for all your help.

No problem at all....and sometimes it's no more than a coincidence that 2 of them died around the same time, and nothing more....

Water tests before adding salt: Started at 12:20PM Waited prescribed time between tests.
PH 7.0
amonia .25
nitrite 2.5
phosphate 1.0

What do you think ?
For what I know it sounded pretty good to me.

Bonnie

Ammonia should be 0. I would do a 25% water exchange and test again. Also, if you get the Microbe Lift, that will help put you back to 0 as well.

I cannot remember what Nitrites should be, but it will go hand in hand with the ammonia readings. Did you check nitrates as well?

Bonnie

Nitrites should be 0 as well. I pulled this off the web


Here are some guidelines: Although your pond may not fit exactly within them it is important to note that consistency is equally if not more important than the test results themselves.

pH: Between 7.2 to 8.3 but consistent and not a lot of swing.
Ammonia: "0". Always.
Nitrite: "0". Always.
Nitrate: "0". Almost never is. A trace is fine. More than that do a water change.

So I am watching this thread and wondering how Bonnies fish are doing. I always treat my fish each spring with major chemicals and will hold any back if they don't seem "right" and continue to treat them longer. My first year ponding was a disaster and I never want that to happen again. Mine was a bacterial infection.


Now I never test nothing and hardly do anything EXCEPT the spring cleaning and all fish get treated for "the works". I do weekly/bi weekly water changes of 25%-50% .

I no longer test my water either. I use the enzyme/bacteria mix after I add water each week to top off the pond (the the Florida heat, we get a lot of evaporation)
If I suspect problems, I use salt.....those 2 simple things seem to take away most of the headaches.

I'm happy to report no more dead fish and I guess adding water so often has brought amonia reading down. I did add salt and pondzyme and thats it.
Mothermole--My first year of ponding almost drove me nuts. No sick fish just cruddy brown water and couldn't see the fish. I was close to ripping pond up out of ground. In 6 mos. I pumped it completely out at least 4 times and refilled and it was clear for about 4 days then cruddy again. Then I started putting a foam filter over end of hose as we have iron water and it helped some so I still use it but when I bought a UV clarifier in 4 days clear as a bell. Boy did I do the happy dance. When I built the other 2 ponds first thing I bought was a UV clarifier for them. MerryMary saw them in Oct. and they are still clear. Oh the joys of ponding. Nothing is without its challenges. Now my first pond needs a new bulb in it's UV and when I get to Acquatic Eco Systems in nearby town I'll get a new one.
BTW many people told me to not expect clear water and I told them I'll have it or pond is going. Thank God it worked cause ripping all those rocks out I cemented tog. around it would have been a chore.
Progress report over and hoping for the best.
Bonnie