Don't let your pond ice completely over

[The PondFather]

When my first pond in Wheaton, IL froze over for a couple days the first year (1982 & I was a pond novice!) I added a bubbler and heater. Worked great. No casualties even though the pond had frozen over completely. The NEXT year it froze again with little warning before I had a chance to winterize the pond. Worse, the leaves hadn't been removed yet so as they decomposed they robbed the water of O2. WOW. Look at this pic. Just overnight all the koi were belly-up. Note the goldfish is still fine! So why the sudden apparent loss of fish when the year before they were fine after the first freeze? Conditions CHANGE and after a year all my fish were a lot bigger – and needed more oxygen. Unfortunately your bigger fish and maybe favorite fish suffocate first as they need more oxygen than smaller Koi or goldfish. Believe it or not, NO FISH WERE LOST. I took this picture and immediately broke the ice and used a shovel to swirl and aerate the water. All the Koi were resuscitated - no mouth to mouth needed . So one of the lessons here is BE VIGILANT. Watch your pond so the ice never ever completely covers your pond. And if it does don't despair either. Break the ice gently and attempt revival by oxygenating the water. And never assume what worked one year will work the next – fish get bigger and need more oxygen each year!

 

[Mike in Vermont]

Wow, that was a close call.

 

[The PondFather]

yeah..my heart was beating fast and I felt ridiculous taking a picture but since the fish all made it now I'm glad I got it.

 

[Mmathis]

How did you bring the fish back?

 

[addy1]

Close call, so glad they all made it

 

[The PondFather]

To my relief they were on their sides due to low oxygen and were not dead yet. Breaking the ice gently, it was thin, then stirring the water with my shovel was all that was needed. Didn't measure dissolved oxygen but I know it rose immediately as the fish started swimming around in just a few minutes. Caught it just in time! An experience and lesson I'll never forget. It was a 1,000 gallon pond so I never thought the oxygen level could fall so fast! Pond was not overstocked.

 

[Dave 54]

I've only ever seen this the once before and I may well be wide of the mark but if it was only the koi you found on their side, then you may have had what is known as sleeping sickness which is known to affect koi .
However it only its normally seen in young koi when the temperature of the pond falls to within a few degrees above freezing as a clinical disease it acctually isnt, its more of a behavoural abnormality.
Koi over two years may not show any symptoms at all but the koi effected simply appear to be dead lying on the bottom of the pond showing no signs of any movement.
It is thought the cold temperature has the dramatic effect of reducing their metabolism so much so that they dont appear to be breathing with the gill movement being s slight .
To treat this its recomended you add salt to the waterand raise the water temperature to 21c at a quite rapid rate of around 2-4c every day or so.
prolonged exposure to the low temperature can dramatically reduce their chance of survival , add the salt at a rate of 6kg per 1,000 litres.
But after 10 days you will need to do water changes to reduce this .
As a matter of interest how deep is your pond please PondFather ?

Dave

 

[The PondFather]

I'd never heard of Koi sleeping like you described. Interesting! My pond was only 18 inches at the time. I planned it at 24" but used concrete that was too thin and it slid down the walls into a 12" thick base instead of the planned 6" base. They lived OK in that depth keeping the pond clean but a few years later I added a concrete collar to gain another 6" back. Eventually I lined the concrete with EPDM as it cracked after 8 years in the ground. Sold the house but some of those original fish are still going and are too large for the pond now.
When I moved to a new house I went to 48" in the deepest portion for easier over-wintering.

 

[j.w]

Just so glad you got there in time w/that shovel!

 

[callingcolleen1]

I have been wintering my pond with my pumps running all year since the year 1991 and I get some really very cold weather here in Zone 2/3 and my koi have never layed on their side, only during the first freeze up some of the goldfish will lay on their side, but they all recover after a week or two.
Dave, you are a sweetheart and you help lots of people and you seem to know lots, but when it comes to winter, you really do not get any winter where you are, and never seen a real Canadian winter like I have, and so you have never witnessed how big the fish get over the winter and how good they look in the early spring.
I really do not believe their is any such thing as sleeping sickness and my koi are outside all year round, even during the minus 45 below that we got here in Alberta Canada last winter. If you keep your pumps running with underwater pumps and filters, to prevent them from freezing, your fish will be fine and you will have much less ice if you leave your pumps running. My pond is alway ice cold and barely above freezing this time of the year, and I do not worry about ice cold water as my koi are just fine and I really think that koi need a good doze of ice cold water for a extended period of time to keep parasites and other diseases at bay. In all the twenty four long years that I have been wintering my pond, I have never had to treat my pond for fish diseases or parasites. In the winter I use a heater when the temperature falls below Minus 15 or 20 Celsius. Depends on how frozen the ground is, if the ground is froze five or six feet down then I will use heater at minus 15 Celsius cause then ice cold ground will cause the ponds to refreeze very quick.

In the future somebody will figure this out, and you will be able to buy a "Pond Freezer" (for people down south) to make their pond water ice cold and put your most treasured koi in the ice cold water for the winter to keep them healthy and free of diseases and parasites! Some day you will see that koi and goldfish are really just "cold Water fish" and as such need to be treated with cold water during the winter to keep them healthy! It is like fishing, people like to ice fish cause the fish taste so good, when you get a big northern Pike and they can taste better than trout if you get them right out of the water in the middle of the winter, ice fishing. BUT if you get that same Pike in the middle of the summer they taste like Slew Water and can have worms !

Dave this Video is just for you my dear, this is my fish coming out of a long winter nap this spring....

 

[callingcolleen1]

Pond Father you are right on the money! Never let you whole pond freeze over without any pumps running, or they will be trapped and suffocate for sure!
You are also correct about the biggest fish needing the most amount of oxygen, they die off first if smothered cause they need the most amount of oxygen!

 

[MitchM]

I prefer to have my pond completely ice over because open water is a danger to wildlife.
We also have a natural 1 acre pond that completely ices over, but it has a year round stream running through it.
I maintain a healthy oxygen level in the constructed pond during the winter with the use of 2 pond breathers.

.

 

[addy1]

I had a small bunch of deer walking on mine the first winter, one cold winter, no fish I thought, but when it thawed I had 4 fish in there.
We are still open water, but got the pond breathers ready for when it starts to freeze.

 

[dieselplower]

There must have been issues with that kind for the fish to go sideways so fast. With the fish being in a hibernation like state and considering the fact that cold water can hold more oxygen, there is niw way they should have been on their side that fast. I would also be interested to see how fast the level of dissolved oxygen can rise through a hole when the water is stirred. Interesting.

 

[Dave 54]

I have been wintering my pond with my pumps running all year since the year 1991 and I get some really very cold weather here in Zone 2/3 and my koi have never layed on their side, only during the first freeze up some of the goldfish will lay on their side, but they all recover after a week or two.
Dave, you are a sweetheart and you help lots of people and you seem to know lots, but when it comes to winter, you really do not get any winter where you are, and never seen a real Canadian winter like I have, and so you have never witnessed how big the fish get over the winter and how good they look in the early spring.
I really do not believe their is any such thing as sleeping sickness and my koi are outside all year round, even during the minus 45 below that we got here in Alberta Canada last winter. If you keep your pumps running with underwater pumps and filters, to prevent them from freezing, your fish will be fine and you will have much less ice if you leave your pumps running. My pond is alway ice cold and barely above freezing this time of the year, and I do not worry about ice cold water as my koi are just fine and I really think that koi need a good doze of ice cold water for a extended period of time to keep parasites and other diseases at bay. In all the twenty four long years that I have been wintering my pond, I have never had to treat my pond for fish diseases or parasites. In the winter I use a heater when the temperature falls below Minus 15 or 20 Celsius. Depends on how frozen the ground is, if the ground is froze five or six feet down then I will use heater at minus 15 Celsius cause then ice cold ground will cause the ponds to refreeze very quick.

In the future somebody will figure this out, and you will be able to buy a "Pond Freezer" (for people down south) to make their pond water ice cold and put your most treasured koi in the ice cold water for the winter to keep them healthy and free of diseases and parasites! Some day you will see that koi and goldfish are really just "cold Water fish" and as such need to be treated with cold water during the winter to keep them healthy! It is like fishing, people like to ice fish cause the fish taste so good, when you get a big northern Pike and they can taste better than trout if you get them right out of the water in the middle of the winter, ice fishing. BUT if you get that same Pike in the middle of the summer they taste like Slew Water and can have worms !

Dave this Video is just for you my dear, this is my fish coming out of a long winter nap this spring....

I've been in the Arctic colleen so I do know what its like to be in extreme cold and we have a friend in St Johns Canada who's koi cannot live if left outside because of extreme cold.
However I can only go by what I see have read and seen for myself .
The Japanese bring their koi in during the winter months we Brits cover and or heat/both during the winter months and you do your own thing where you are and I do recall you saying your pond being heated by a sort of heater that is used with cattle.
Sleeping sickness is a fact and it does affect young koi this is why I mentioned it in the first case .
We should be picking up on the fact that PondFather's pond is a wee bit too shallow for koi they need 4.5ft -5ft , $ft bare minimum the 24" being the reason we are seeing a possible case of sleeping sickness :-

http://www.kokosgoldfish.invisionzo....html/_/articles/sleeping-sickness-in-koi-r38

We dont heat our pond like your goodself but we had the forsight to insulate the pond and its filters against the elements , we also cover our pond durng the winter with Polycarbonate roofing sheets. which means even at -15c "our lowest temp last winter that the pond its filters where at the lowest 7c" , with a high of 9c above that of freezing
Its a case of each individual to their own , Peter Waddington the Great Koi Guru would say to us that in his eyes we are being cruel because we arent heating but in our eyes we dont need to because of the insulation.
However we did have a bit of forsight because at temperatures bellow that of -15c would see us switch on an 800watt oil storage heater sighted in the filter housing for the very purpose of keeping the air around th filter warmer than the outside airtemperature thus raising the water temperature as it passes through .
To say we dont see intense cold even as far south as where we are is a nonsence , though admittedly we dont keep it as long as in Canada we do otherwise get it .
Sleeping sickness is a fact we cant get around that can we , why would our experts report on it otherwise ?


Dave