Country Escape's 2nd pond - Goldfish only

[j.w]

What a busy bee you are CE. I am just doing a bit each day there is dry weather. Need to get out and trim more plants that have dead stuff on them. Did some yesterday and will do more today. Waiting for pond net to arrive and that will take me some time sewing nets together to make one big one and figuring out just how it will fit nicely on the t-posts so I can get in there when I need to do maintenance.

 

[callingcolleen1]

My garden junk is half put away, the other half is stuck to the ground and froze in now..

 

[CountryEscape]

Ground is frozen barely here, Colleen, and last weekend we had temps only up to high teens for 2 days. But, that never last for long here in Illinois. Things are thawed out now, so I'll be putting up Christmas stuff outside. Got some new LED solar lights that will be fun, just have to decide where to put them, so the solar path lights will come on, too. Love solar LED stuff!!! All my outside lights are LED, too.

 

[callingcolleen1]

I have lots of solar lights too, I never put them away, what for, they can shine now threw the ice and snow. Everything gets old sooner or later, and getting new solar lights aways exciting! In the summer it is a struggle to get enough light to charge the battery's as the trees take over quickly.

I need to get outside and get my Christmas stuff up too, but today it is a little smoky again, not as bad as before, but I can't get into getting outside to put them up! I will get them up on my next day off maybe....

 

[CountryEscape]

I love solar lights, too. I think I'm addicted, seriously! If I go to Menards, I have to just not go to the lighting department to keep from buying something new. Always buy when they are on sale, but still .... love them! I will now check out the Christmas stuff when it goes on sale for anything that is solar, as this is first year I saw stuff there that is solar. I get full sun summer and winter, never changes, as trees are too far from my house to shade much.

 

[CountryEscape]

OK, maybe a problem, maybe not, but half of my goldfish are laying on their sides on bottom of pond! I've noticed this for several weeks. They look dead and maybe even bloated, but if I touch them or try to net them, they swim away. Has anyone else ever had this? I don't want dead fish decaying in the pond over winter, but on the other hand they are alive. Maybe they hibernate this way? I can only see maybe half of them, so can only assume the other half are hiding between the lily pots on the shallower end, or under the leaves on the bottom. STRANGE! I could easily catch the "bumpy" fish now, but no way will I put him/her through removing from that frigid water to much warmer water, no matter how I try to make it cold. So, will sit back and see if any of you have seen this or if my fish are truly dying. Some are swimming normally at the bottom, others are nose pointed down hovering.
Since I had the fish dying issue this past summer, and since recently (couple of weeks ago) got big rain and the koi pond overflowed into the goldfish pond, really wondering if the chemicals that were sprayed way back in August flowed into the goldfish pond, and affected them again. I had meant to drain the koi pond down and do big water changes to it, but didn't get that done. :banghead3:

 

[callingcolleen1]

Sometimes during the first really cold snap, some of the goldfish will lay on their sides, but they recover after a couple weeks and then are fine for the rest of the winter. Only a few, like they ate a big bug just before the extreme cold came and then could not digest it cause their metabolism slowed down too quick. Mine did that last month and now they are all fine again. they seem to do that every fall when the big freeze first comes.

If the water is circulating too much it also make the water extra cold, that is why I switch pumps in the fall to smaller pumps.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Topping up my pond today, I run the hose out of the bathroom window to the pond. Every winter I always seem to wonder where the water goes sometimes. I think ice displaces the water...

 

[sissy]

I thought mulch was expensive here ,I guess not .Red and Black are the most expensive here .Funny ce my neighbor lost 2 of her fish and they were acting the same .They died and I have been over there several times and more are acting the same .I saw poo on the bottom and got the quilt batting and we got it out and then kept cleaning the quilt batting several times .As soon as I am done with my coffee I am going to walk over and take a look to see if that was it and see the fish and if there are any more deaths .I tested the water and all was zero so that is not it .They lay on there sides but as soon as you touch them they swim away .I wonder if it could be some type of swim bladder problem or lack of oxygen .

 

[callingcolleen1]

Could be swim bladder for sure. You have not had really cold weather yet and lot of ice?

 

[callingcolleen1]

And the bloated bellys are not a good sign, may not be the same as what I see after a big freeze and lots of ice.....

 

[sissy]

! more of hers does not look good so took it out and tried rubbing it's sides and it won't eat peas .I used and old fish tank and we put it in pond water in there and under the carport and then as water warms up from sun , so we will not shock it when we bring it in the house .I put the tank on rolling carpeted furniture mover and took boards over to make a ramp to pull it up and in the house .Not hurting my back to move it .

 

[CountryEscape]

I got ice covering the ponds about 80% coverage a couple of weekends ago, when our temps were highs around freezing, lows in the teens F. I turned on the fountain pump in that pond, which bubbles just to the surface, to keep water moving and ice open. Skimmer and bog pump have not been shut off, still running. That pond is far warmer (shallower, too) than the koi pond, which had about 30% ice coverage yet this morning, and the temps this weekend have been really warm, today up to upper 50's and sunny. No ice on goldfish pond at all, still about 15% on koi pond. If that pond has an oxygen problem (it was brought up when fish in there died all of a sudden), then nothing has changed since summer, except that I added the fountain bubbler. I would think that would add to oxygen, not deplete it, right? I'm going to leave the fish alone, and just pay attention to how they act in the morning and following morning. All of the koi are under the ice, so I wasn't able to check to see how they were "sleeping" to compare. :cheerful:
And, I have no way to know if some bug was still alive to have jumped into the pond, but I doubt that, since it got really cold here weeks ago. Been jumping in temps, up and down, which has been happening for months it seems. I quit feeding them probably month and a half or 2 months ago. I don't think I've fed since first part of October, so that would be 2 months ago. Whenever the water temps went below 55, I quit feeding, and had been slowing down feeding prior to that, too. And, would they all get swim bladder issue at the same time? That doesn't make sense to me either. I can understand if one got sick and had that issue, but maybe I don't know what causes swim bladder, thus the issue could be the water condition. Checked, PH, Nitrite, Nitrate and Ammonia are all zero and PH is 8.2, so seems all within good numbers. Will watch and see what happens.

 

[haver79]

CE our temps have been up and down as well. We had a nice weekend so I had un plugged my deicer mid week. We had single digit lows before that.

Anyway, when I was checking up on the fish this weekend I noticed at least one fish still making fish poo. So obviously they are still eating whatever they can find in the pond. (I have not fed for roughly 1 1/2 to 2 months either.) I do not have any fish acting like yours by lying on there sides. I do have my concerns about them eating in these temps but nothing I can do about what they are finding to eat in the pond. Thought about feeding them some peas but not sure that is safe to do either. My fantail seemed to be swimming with exaggerated wiggles, slower than normal, (don't know how els to describe it) and he looks almost too plump. So wondering if there are any bloating issues there.

 

[CountryEscape]

Thanks for comparison, Haver. I think this is very unusual as well, do not remember this last winter, the goldfish pond's first winter. So, I shall watch them and learn from this. I'm, so tempted to remove the "bumpy" guy, and as Sissy noted above, I probably could do it so he would not be shocked by the temperature change in the water if I did it like she was talking, but just don't have a place to set up the QT, at least not on my first level in my house. I know, too many excuses. Probably should have removed more leaf matter, as there was SOME, but not too much, and assuming some of the fish are under it hibernating ... or dying .... I didn't want to disturb that either. The frogs go into the stuff left on the bottom, too. There is not much down there, just in a few places it's maybe an inch deep with leaves. I had netted the pond after the big wind storm that blew through here maybe 2 weeks ago, so there wouldn't have been that much more to get in there. Come spring time, I will learn what is or did happen to the fish. For now, they will be left alone, unless someone can tell me 100% sure they are dying, and need to be removed. :blueflower: