Lessons learned from this winter's extreme cold

[Dave 54]

I'd take that up with the lady in question and the head of the BKKS health forum we raised the issue with he identified all but the top portion of the koi's gills as dead, he at first thought the koi had died of KHV
It's also strange that since I suggested that since I suggested she move them indoors she hasnt lost one koi .
However fist things first go on themtherekoyas the Japanese breeders and many other koi keepers as to sucking on bad gasses against all odd'she would each day chop through the ice so there was no bad gasses as you put it
I would particularly talk to Peter Waddington on his take of koi Carp and over wintering of koi and the reasons why , I did the same had the same attitued as you do up until that time.
But who are we in the scheme of things but two koi keepers with nly a few years between us in keeping them
Peter Waddington is considered to have written two astounding books Koi Kichi and Koi2Kichi and as such is a koi guru to many around the world alongside other Authors such as Dr Erik Johnson, Maartin Laamens Nicholas Saint-Earne Duncan Griffiths Ronnie Watts and Servaas de kock.

Dave

 

[callingcolleen1]

Well at least she has a way now to keep her fish safe, and that is all that matters. Sorry if I sounded a little cranky, but this weather here in Medicine Hat sucks, it is supposed to be April soon and I still am having to shovel the walk. Then it was a long hard winter and I am desperately craving the sunshine. I was so down the other day when I saw all the white fluffy crap falling outside like crazy.
I am working right now in the greenhouse tonight, transplanting up a storm and getting my miniature fairy garden together. I have been busy and meant to ask how Val is doing now?

 

[addy1]

Hey ms cranky Colleen! Maybe you need one of those sunshine lights! Love you garden up above, so neat looking. (whispering................we are 47 at 5 am..............think spring may have come finally.........)

 

[MitchM]

I don't know if Princess Auto is in AB, Mitch. I can tell you, however, that they have an absolutely excellent return policy with no hassles.

We do have Princess Auto here.
I'm looking a reliable one. Once the pond is ice covered, there's no changing the pump till spring....or summer...whenever the ice thaws.

 

[Dave 54]

I'd take that up with the lady in question and the head of the BKKS health forum we raised the issue with he identified all but the top portion of the koi's gills as dead, he at first thought the koi had died of KHV
It's also strange that since I suggested that since I suggested she move them indoors she hasnt lost one koi .
However fist things first go on themtherekoyas the Japanese breeders and many other koi keepers as to sucking on bad gasses against all odd'she would each day chop through the ice so there was no bad gasses as you put it
I would particularly talk to Peter Waddington on his take of koi Carp and over wintering of koi and the reasons why , I did the same had the same attitued as you do up until that time.
But who are we in the scheme of things but two koi keepers with nly a few years between us in keeping them
Peter Waddington is considered to have written two astounding books Koi Kichi and Koi2Kichi and as such is a koi guru to many around the world alongside other Authors such as Dr Erik Johnson, Maartin Laamens Nicholas Saint-Earne Duncan Griffiths Ronnie Watts and Servaas de kock.

Dave

How did that happen my original post had the he at first through they had died of KHV .after the koi gills as dead but in that post its missing (huh) ???
Nice fairy garden by the way down our end of the country they and Pixies are still believed in
Dave

 

[topofthehill1]

[QUOTE="Dave 54, post: 211262, member: 5153"I still believe strongly that covering the pond with double thickness policarbonate roofing would be a way forwards for many plus if anyone plans a new pond in the northern climes it would be a very good idea to plan in insulation of pipes pond filters etc.
I also believe in working through the winter months with water changes using the trickle method we employ with the ambient temperature of the pondwarming the chilled water it all gives our koi that extra edge when it comes to the spring and what we call Areomonas Alley ......

Dave[/QUOTE]

Dave,
I see your mention of the policarbonate roofing panels. The past two winters I have used these roofing panels with maybe a twenty degree pitch over my small pond. Its not totally sealed in as the panels on the sides kept getting blown off. With the heavy snows this year I left it covered with snow when possible. So maybe you can help me. Is there an advantage to using two layers of panels because I see you wrote double thickness? Also do you know if the advantage is more from the insulation or from the greenhouse effect of the panels?? I was never sure if I should leave the snow on or shovel it off. I think the main benefit I had was reducing the wind chill but I was looking for ways to improve. I guess I am confused as to if I would be better off increasing the pitch and hoping for sun. Or focusing on maybe a double layer of panels with a lower pitch and a better seal.
Thanks
Travis

 

[Dave 54]

topofthehill we weigh our pannels down with large rocks so that the wind cannot lift them off the pond however we lay ours flat rather than have them at an angle you'll find that the pond isnt completely sealed and as such the pond can gas off which is important the gaps we are talking are minute just cracks really but it allows air to flow in and out.
If you can double the thickness by placing other panels atop the first layer then our logic is that its giving you greater isulation.
Or simply buy the much more expensive quadrouple thickness panels to cover the pond.
We chose quadrouple pannel for the sliding part of our filterhousing the one that gives us access to our vortex the panels above that have large 2" gaps between them and the ends are sealed as are all the panels you can do this with parcel tape which works far better than duck tape and stays on (Val's idea she noted that if parcels get wet the tape holing them shut stays put )
The logic of the 2" gap panels I bleive is the cold simply cant penitrate the second layer.these however are sealed by UPVC panels that clip to the sides and this sits inthe windowframe we use to support the panels ( I will at some stage post photos of the completed filter housing which we insulated the walls with 22" ploystreene sheets .
The net result of both pond insulation filter housing insulation and the Polycarbonate sheeting is that we maintained a temperature last year on an unheated pond of 7.5c at -15c air
temperature with an upper limit of 9c when the air warmed to over 0C., at no time did the water freeze how did yours fare please?
We are acctually thinking of adding a wooden frame around the outer edges of the pond insulation for greater strength but thats just in the idea phase at the moment .

Dave

 

[topofthehill1]

Dave,

Thanks, that helps a lot. I have been thinking about how to get a head start on next winter. I will have to check to see what thickness panels available at the store. . I did not know they came in multiple thickness. Or even check. Took me an entire day to find a decent way to cut it.

Last year I added a frame instead of just laying the panels over top. Usually we do not get that much snow but this year it was snowing every time you walked outside. Without the framing I would have wasted a lot of money on those panels. The first year when the wind got under the panels it blew them off and the bricks holding them down fell into the water.

Well unfortunately the part of my pond that did freeze was exactly where my thermometer was so I don't have the numbers you do. I do have a good comparison with a natural pond across the street from me that I felt pretty sure I could have walked across. Probably at least a foot of frozen water over there. The worst of the winter I had about 1/3rd of the pond frozen with 1-2'' of ice. And about 2/3rds that never froze. The part that froze was near where my side panel blows off and does not get as much sun. The few times I did check the temp 2C at about -4.5C. You just made me do math. So although I considered my venture very successful I was not near you upper limit at 0C. So I would say mine was a huge improvement over no covering but not nearly as successful as yours. You definitely have a larger bump in temp than I had. I have some yellow iris that stayed green the entire winter. When you take pictures I would love to see them. I hope to add a door or hatch next winter so it will be a little easier to take a look at what is going on down there. Thanks

 

[rebelangel_3733]

Well all of my goldies, shubunkin and comets survived our crappy extremely cold nebraska winter with only the bubbler going and a de-icer nearby it. Three times during the "warmer" days through out this winter I did change the quilt batting that I line around the pump in a small crate that I use as filtration. They sure did like the bottom of the pond this winter and am glad we decided to dig that extra 1/2 of a foot to about 4' deep in their wintering "hole".
Whatever is growing along the sides of the liner obviously kept the kids fat and sassy, because there is not one skinny fish in my pond.
I know next fall/winter I will leave the mesh/netting over the pond to keep out the neighborhood leaves out!! Oh my word...our three trees were done by october with dropping leaves but obviously the neighborhood has many pin oaks that aren't! Not amused.
We had unusual below zero cold temps for way longer periods of time than I like, but even with the bubbler freezing over the de-icer provided a hole right beside for the gases to escape. I don't think the ice was thicker than and inch to 1 1/2" at any given time though. I think our ground just wasn't moist enough to "deep freeze", which may have helped the ice not get so thick.
I did have a neighborhood cat fall into the pond as I watched him go onto the pond to get a drink of water in the hole the de-icer made, I couldn't believe it but he got out in a hurry and ran off. Hopefully he learned his lesson. Our dog just drinks out of the pond, and he is not a swimmer anyway, he's a 14 yr ol rott-boxer mix. Heck even when we take him to the lake when were camping he only gets knee deep and doesn't like to get to where he has to swim lol.
I'm about to embark on building a bog/waterfall and am thinking I need to keep the hose that feeds it underground up to the point it enters into it just in case I try to leave it running during the winter, but at this point I think I'll probably be shutting it down instead for winters to come, just mixed emotions with that subject with all that I read on here...
Think I'll get a thermometer also because this winter I have no clue what them temp was at any given point in the pond.

 

[sharpchick]

I'm with RobAmy... our fish survived the winter in great shape. However I'm not sure I could handle another winter like the one we just experienced. Excuse me - no past tense. We woke up to snow this morning!

We chose this year as the first year to try running the pump all winter, which means the water was filtered through the bog all winter, too. The result so far has been great. Our typical start up stirs up silt in the bog, stream and pool which clouds the pond for a few hours - none of that this year. The algae growth is remarkably higher than normal for this time of year, which is amazing. Even in that extreme cold, nature finds a way. So we learned that our pond will sustain even the most extreme winter with out a hitch, which is a very good lesson indeed. We were worried about the decision initially and had we had even a HINT of what was coming, I'm sure we would have shut everything down.

The lesson that we fear we learned the hard way is that some of our shrubs do NOT like the extreme cold and especially the extreme wind chills. Lots of brown, dead looking foliage right now. Let's hope the warm spring days will show signs of greening up, or we may have lots of re-planting to do! I had burlap in the garage ready to wrap some of our newer plantings but thought I had plenty of time before the snow came - ha! We had snow cover from the end of November until about two weeks ago. That burlap was nice and warm in my garage though!

On the advice of my local pond guy,I shut my pump down for the winter, and so there was no circulation through the bog filter. I had pulled out the annuals, and trimmed the lotus stems in the pond, as well as getting the submerged oxygenators out.

The fish did fine, although we had record lows for days at a time, and the pond (it's an above ground stock tank) had 1.25' of ice on it at three different times, except for the spot where I had the pond de-icer, which did its job very, very well - I had about a 6" diameter hole for gas exchange.

But some of my perennial bog plants are looking very peaked, and I think I'm going to leave the pump running next year.

 

[sissy]

moles are wicked little critters and guessing they do not back up that is why they chewed through my liner so put plenty of milky spore all around my pond and under my new liner to kill off the grubs that the moles like .So they better not come back .Learned a lot how much damage they can do .I think they were more active this past winter than ever before also .

 

[addy1]

But some of my perennial bog plants are looking very peaked, and I think I'm going to leave the pump running next year.

I shut mine down, the plants come back gang busters.

 

[koiguy1969]

I LEARNED THAT EVEN WHEN THE WINTERS ARE UNUSUALLY HARSH, LONG, OR BOTH. WHEN THEY WINTER IN A BASEMENT POND THEY NEVER EVEN NOTICE!
lol...