What do you do for pond maintance during the winter?
Mine is a mess with all the dead plants. Can see the fish real easy now, laying among the plants on the bottom.
Started to rake out the leaves in my vegie pond and there were still green plants underneath.
Have a whole bunch of goldfish fry swimming around, Guess I need to get them out, as I do not want them. My Koi wont eat them.
Pond clean up
Are you sure they are not Koi fry? Jessamine
All are still gold in color. Think there is about 4 of them, out of about a hundred, that have black on them.
There are four big gold fish also. Put them in in the pond in the begining to to see if they would die from my well water. They have to go come summer also, now that I have the KOI.
I have seen some koi fry that look similar to comet fry. Both can change color as they grow. The distinctive head shape and shading seem to take a bit of time to develop. I know I would have a hard time sorting them out if they were too small. I guess the cleaning would depend on how much debris there is and how cold the water is. Really cold water slows the microbe action down a lot. I know I will have to dredge out some oak leaves that escaped the netting before they produce too much tannic acid. However my fishies are useing them as a blanket right now so I will have to be careful. Jessamine
Jessamine this is my first pond and fish. Will any of the Hycinths survive or should I dip all of them out. They are all brown now. Also the string like plants are all on the bottom in a big glob. Cannot tell if they are alive due to a thin layer of silt on the bottom. The Koi are also using them as a blanket. The pond is large, being 3 X 10 X 40 ft. I will leave the fry alone until spring to see what happens to them. They are about two inches long now. We have had a nice long warm spell there. Out of season, so the Koi are all eating again. Was 70 degrees day before yesterday. Now would not you like a little of it up there. Will get down to 20 though tonight. Had a alge eater in there and never could find him. Yesterday I found him dead from the cold. He was 1" long when I got him and was about 6" when he died. Perfect cammofloge. Spelling is wrong
You have a nice sized pond. Wish mine was that size but I don't have that kind of space. If the fry are that big they would have been distinguishable as comet or koi so they are likely to be comets. The temps are worrisome. Do you have a good thermometer to show the water temps? Even if the air temps are that high during the day the water temps could be low, still. I use a digital thermometer with an underwater sensor. I can read the temps from my living room. They are really very reasonably priced now and keep me from making mistakes. I got mine at Menards but try Lowe's, Home Depot etc. My guess is you had a plecostumus. They are tropical and just won't take low temps. The koi will eat the algae, too. Sigh... I could use some warmth about now. Jessamine
Jessamine,
We don't have Menards here. I haven't been able to find something like your digital thermometer with the underwater probe. Could you give me more information on it....perhaps the brand name?
I have three outdoor ponds to monitor in the winter and could certainly use the type of thermometer you have described.
Your help will be appreciated.
Bell
Hey Bell: Apparently lots of places carry them now. If you have a farm supply store near you I'd try there too. Here's a discussion I found on them that shows the pros and cons and some names. I've been pleased with mine even though it is not one of the expensive ones. Jessamine
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/ponds/msg0116031710195.html
Jessamine.....Thanks for your reply. I went to the sight given and read it all.
Amazing the different thoughts on this. I will be doing some more looking.
Here is hoping Spring arrives soon.
Thanks again,
Bell