I don't even want to post this. I am just heartsick about it, but we knew it was a possibility - I was just hoping for a better outcome.
I came home from work today to find the pond 80% thawed... and all of our big fish dead. Early in January when we had a freakishly warm spell we discovered that the plumbing from the pump to the main line had separated - the water was pumping, but because it wasn't a sealed line it was running very, very slowly. We were concerned that the water was moving so slowly that it would freeze and damage the pump, the plumbing, or both. It was just a simple matter of disconnecting the line, pulling the pump out of the vault, re-gluing the PVC (someone please explain to me why our glued PVC connections keep failing!), dropping the pump back down into the vault and re-connecting the pump.
Well, like every "simple" job, it didn't turn out to be so simple. It was indeed warm - almost 60 degrees - but that meant mud which added some challenges. We got it all glued back together (after discovering the guy at the store had given us two different kinds of PVC cleaner, but no glue... argh!) and went to do the "easy" part of reconnecting the two pieces and discovered the main line was about 1 1/2 inches lower than it needed to be to make the connection. We had had some digging done around the vault (to enlarge the sump line that had cracked the winter before) and it appears the line settled just enough that we will need to shorten the whole pump assembly to get it to work. By this time it was near dark and we knew we had run out of time. All we could do was put in the de-icer and hope the aerator would be enough until we had another opportunity to get the pump reconnected... which probably won't be until spring at this point.
The next day the temperatures dropped and we started to experience real winter weather. Lots of snow and of course the polar vortex came calling. I'm guessing several factors came into play - not enough oxygen, not enough gas exchange (the pond was under full snow cover for several weeks) and fish that were just too big to handle the combination of the first two. All of our goldfish appear to be fine at this point.
I scooped out 6 big fish and saw two more that I couldn't get to. We had 10 big koi, so I know the rest are under the remaining ice. Right now my pond feels like a Death Pond. I feel terrible about this whole situation, even though I know we did what we could to prevent this from happening. My poor, beautiful fish.
Sorry friends. I am a sad ponder today.
I came home from work today to find the pond 80% thawed... and all of our big fish dead. Early in January when we had a freakishly warm spell we discovered that the plumbing from the pump to the main line had separated - the water was pumping, but because it wasn't a sealed line it was running very, very slowly. We were concerned that the water was moving so slowly that it would freeze and damage the pump, the plumbing, or both. It was just a simple matter of disconnecting the line, pulling the pump out of the vault, re-gluing the PVC (someone please explain to me why our glued PVC connections keep failing!), dropping the pump back down into the vault and re-connecting the pump.
Well, like every "simple" job, it didn't turn out to be so simple. It was indeed warm - almost 60 degrees - but that meant mud which added some challenges. We got it all glued back together (after discovering the guy at the store had given us two different kinds of PVC cleaner, but no glue... argh!) and went to do the "easy" part of reconnecting the two pieces and discovered the main line was about 1 1/2 inches lower than it needed to be to make the connection. We had had some digging done around the vault (to enlarge the sump line that had cracked the winter before) and it appears the line settled just enough that we will need to shorten the whole pump assembly to get it to work. By this time it was near dark and we knew we had run out of time. All we could do was put in the de-icer and hope the aerator would be enough until we had another opportunity to get the pump reconnected... which probably won't be until spring at this point.
The next day the temperatures dropped and we started to experience real winter weather. Lots of snow and of course the polar vortex came calling. I'm guessing several factors came into play - not enough oxygen, not enough gas exchange (the pond was under full snow cover for several weeks) and fish that were just too big to handle the combination of the first two. All of our goldfish appear to be fine at this point.
I scooped out 6 big fish and saw two more that I couldn't get to. We had 10 big koi, so I know the rest are under the remaining ice. Right now my pond feels like a Death Pond. I feel terrible about this whole situation, even though I know we did what we could to prevent this from happening. My poor, beautiful fish.
Sorry friends. I am a sad ponder today.
