Goldfish Dying... Someone Help!

[Calley]

Thank you hun I love my pond.
Yes unfortunately Mother Nature will 'thin the herd' so to speak if perameters are not right, servival of the fittest. No you may not have been O2 deprived all this time OR you may have just been teetering on the edge of it and these weather fronts with the barometer pressure going up and down ( I remember when I was a little girl and went fishing with my dad, we would get minnows and put em in a minnow bucket and the would be fine. But some days when the days were really hot and it was going to storm later that day, the poor things wouldn't make it all day. It's something I never forgot, dad told me when the pressure in the air swings fast or is very low, the oxygen will not stay in the water very good so the fish are having a hard time breathing. At the time I though ' that's funny, fish breathe under water??' But I get it now lol)
Honestly Calley, you may never know exactly how it happened, but I'm 99% positive it was O2 related. May have been a mix of things together, but you caught it and saved a few good going. That's a great thing in my book. So keep that pond well oxygenated some how and you won't have to worry the next time.
Now.... On a more positive note thought you might wanna see the new baby red ear sliders I just got ?View attachment 73043

View attachment 73044
Ain't they cute?!

Yes I am now going to buy an aerator of some sort, so that this never happens again!
And I guess you also just informed me why my minnows were jumping out of the bucket last week when we were fishing...Good stuff to know!
Your little sliders are cute as buttons! My little cousin used to have two, he named them Squirt and Crush after Finding Nemo!
Honestly thank you all for your advice and support, I did have a really stressful day with this, but I'm glad its done and I feel better now with all your help!
@Fishylove @cnyle @Dave 54

 

[springknee]

I'm just coming to the conclusion that they went into shock. My pond isn't huge, maybe 90-100 gal? And maybe the fish would have had time to adjust.... if the water was turned off when it was full. I think that with the constant filling of the cold water, the water never had the chance to adjust to the air temperature, shocking all the fish. I think I'll have four left, the 5th one doesn't look like he/she will make it. Thank you all for the good advice!

Sorry about your fish wish I had an anwser. But I do have a couple of options for the future.
1. If you have a farm supply store in the area they sell an automatic tank fill valve which would stop the flow of water when full.
2.You can get a water timer that will shut off after a set time or by gallons.
Again I'm sorry about your fish.

 

[Calley]

Sorry about your fish wish I had an anwser. But I do have a couple of options for the future.
1. If you have a farm supply store in the area they sell an automatic tank fill valve which would stop the flow of water when full.
2.You can get a water timer that will shut off after a set time or by gallons.
Again I'm sorry about your fish.

Thank you! I have an Agway store pretty close, I'll have to go.
I might get something just in case, even though I think my mom learned her lesson about forgetting to turn the hose off!
Thanks again.

 

[CometKeith]

Hi Calley, Sorry about your fish. The newly added water upset the top layer of oxygenated water at the top of the pond.
http://warnell.forestry.uga.edu/service/library/index.php3?docID=183&docHistory[]=1

 

[snoozer]

So sorry you lost so many fish. I think with the small size of your pond you could get an air pump that you use for aquariums. I have a Coral life luft pump for my fish tank in the house. It puts out alot of ait and with an air stone I would think it would be enough with the size of your pond. Good luck to you

 

[Lisaebetten]

Thank you hun I love my pond.
Yes unfortunately Mother Nature will 'thin the herd' so to speak if perameters are not right, servival of the fittest. No you may not have been O2 deprived all this time OR you may have just been teetering on the edge of it and these weather fronts with the barometer pressure going up and down ( I remember when I was a little girl and went fishing with my dad, we would get minnows and put em in a minnow bucket and the would be fine. But some days when the days were really hot and it was going to storm later that day, the poor things wouldn't make it all day. It's something I never forgot, dad told me when the pressure in the air swings fast or is very low, the oxygen will not stay in the water very good so the fish are having a hard time breathing. At the time I though ' that's funny, fish breathe under water??' But I get it now lol)
Honestly Calley, you may never know exactly how it happened, but I'm 99% positive it was O2 related. May have been a mix of things together, but you caught it and saved a few good going. That's a great thing in my book. So keep that pond well oxygenated some how and you won't have to worry the next time.
Now.... On a more positive note thought you might wanna see the new baby red ear sliders I just got ?View attachment 73043

View attachment 73044
Ain't they cute?!

Oh so cute, I might make accommodations for some in the future!

 

[Lisaebetten]

Sorry for your painful education, but it sounds like you understand and are moving forward to better your pond for you future fish. I am learning a TON this week on this forum from other peoples catastrophes, #1 education is the key if your going to own any type of water, plant or animal. #2 have supplies on hand if possible to treatments of fish or water. So thankful for this venue to learn from before my pond is hooked up.

 

[Fishylove]

Oh so true LisaE, I too have learned so much from this forum about ponding, it's a great place with great people!

 

[Dave 54]

So sorry you lost so many fish. I think with the small size of your pond you could get an air pump that you use for aquariums. I have a Coral life luft pump for my fish tank in the house. It puts out alot of ait and with an air stone I would think it would be enough with the size of your pond. Good luck to you

Snoozer the indoor aquarium pumps just wont cut it outside you need a much more powerful airpump simply for the depth of pond and thus the volume of air to be pumped through it
But more importantly for outdoor work is that airpumps are weather proofed which the indoor ones arent .

Dave

 

[addy1]

Sorry about your fish.
I killed a bunch when I first built the pond, though well water would be good for them, but nope, too low ph. Our well is such a low ph 5.4 that would kill our fish if I did a total water change over.
I am not sure if any mentioned this above, get a hose timer, home depot, lowes sells them you can then set it for 30 minutes and it shuts off, or 15 or whatever you need.
My water fill is on a water sprinkler system, electric, turns the water on and off after x time.

 

[HARO]

Seriously, folks, we're talking 150 gallons here. A powerful pond air pump would blow the fish clean out of the water!! TWELVE LARGE AIRSTONES, Dave? There'd be no ROOM for fish!!
John

 

[dieselplower]

I had intended to post a day or two ago but it seems I forgot to hit enter.
Cold water will send fish to the bottom, not to the top gasping for air.
I am confused how adding tons of new water could lead to oxygen depletion. All the new water SHOULD have a high oxygen content. Also, I do not believe stratification of this magnitude can happen in such a small pond. It would have to be deeper.
And yes I agree with the above that a large aerator is not needed in a small pond. An aquarium sized one would be fine in my opinion.
Also I am not totally sure I believe the article posted regarding how the oxygen depletion occurs. It was written in 1997 by the way. If the water did "turn over", why would that cause the oxygen to suddenly dly off into the air? How exacly would the molecules be broken apart?
Also, what was the approximate temperature difference from the old water to the new water?
And, was your fountain pump located in the bottom of the pond? If if was, there is no way the water was stratified. The pump would have kept the bottom water moving up to the top.

 

[Calley]

Sorry for your painful education, but it sounds like you understand and are moving forward to better your pond for you future fish. I am learning a TON this week on this forum from other peoples catastrophes, #1 education is the key if your going to own any type of water, plant or animal. #2 have supplies on hand if possible to treatments of fish or water. So thankful for this venue to learn from before my pond is hooked up.

See I never usually have any major supplies on hand for my pond. I live on a farm, so when something bad happens, it's usually never to the fish, it's always to the big animals like horses goats and dogs! I will have to start getting in tune with the fishes and have some backup supplies!

 

[Calley]

I had intended to post a day or two ago but it seems I forgot to hit enter.
Cold water will send fish to the bottom, not to the top gasping for air.
I am confused how adding tons of new water could lead to oxygen depletion. All the new water SHOULD have a high oxygen content. Also, I do not believe stratification of this magnitude can happen in such a small pond. It would have to be deeper.
And yes I agree with the above that a large aerator is not needed in a small pond. An aquarium sized one would be fine in my opinion.
Also I am not totally sure I believe the article posted regarding how the oxygen depletion occurs. It was written in 1997 by the way. If the water did "turn over", why would that cause the oxygen to suddenly dly off into the air? How exacly would the molecules be broken apart?
Also, what was the approximate temperature difference from the old water to the new water?
And, was your fountain pump located in the bottom of the pond? If if was, there is no way the water was stratified. The pump would have kept the bottom water moving up to the top.

Yes I have pondered a few of these things... but I am not sure what to think. Yes all of the fish were floating sideways at the top when I found them at about 4 in the morning, I guess they could have been to the bottom at some point of the night that I wasn't there?
I thought about the well water too... Dave thinks that the water disrupted the two layers. And I realized today that there is a lot of air in the water when I use it. Even the kitchen faucet has a lot of air pockets that come through it.
I'm thinking when I get an aerator it will be the smallest outdoor one I can find, because I agree that the fish won't have much room!
My pump for the waterfall is actually located at the top, for ease of access reasons because we usually have to clean the pump out a lot.
The water temperature thing is still confusing me, my hose is attached to a spigot coming off of the side of my house. The water would have come out of the well and had to travel out of the well, through the house, through the pipes to the basement, then through the hose. I'm thinking it wasn't as cold as I thought it was. Also I keep my fish in the pond through the winter, and just use an electric pond heater to melt a hole in the ice so that they can breathe. So the fish have survived a LOT of cold water before.
What do you guys think @dieselplower @Dave 54

 

[Lisaebetten]

See I never usually have any major supplies on hand for my pond. I live on a farm, so when something bad happens, it's usually never to the fish, it's always to the big animals like horses goats and dogs! I will have to start getting in tune with the fishes and have some backup supplies!

Everyone is at their own level of ponding. I know all about the farm life and understand where your coming from. I remember we used to keep goldfish in the large outside horse trough, year round with nothing to comfort their lives!!!! The horses would stomp inside the trough at the fishes!