Winter Pond Temps

[addy1]

totally agree Colleen, I didn't know I had fish that year. Someone just covered the preform with wood, probably the bank for liability reasons. I keep our big pond open with air, got a load of fish and critters in it. It was iced over while we were in florida for about 3 weeks, the electricity went out. No dead fish, I got it open as soon as we got home and we are warmish off and on, the edges of the pond tend to melt back some then freeze then melt unless we get a real good cold smack.

 

[Mucky_Waters]

Well 7 to 8 inches of ice not to bad, so you must be in southern BC then. Your fish load is low, not too thick of ice, you may be OK. I get lots of snow some years, but I do top off pond all winter as mine is heated when very cold. You may have nothing to worry about, just don't like the fish in the dark either for too long, and with those walls you have, sun may not shine directly on your pond till May, so melting that ice may take longer too. Keep your eye out for white mold or fungas on the plants, pond walls, or fish, as long time with little or no sun is not good either.

Yep southern BC.
You make a good point about potential mold and fungus problem. I'll let you know if I see any signs of it.
And there is actually some shining on the pond already, and along the Northern edge of the pond, where there is the least snow and the sill edge of the pond wall meets my courtyard area and the sun shines the most directly, there is an area where the pond water is open to the air. The ice has melted free from the liner and there is a line of open water right up against the liner just under the tiled sill.

Here's a couple pictures that show it better than I can describe it.

Looking at the pond above and looking under the sill from the pond side below.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Well mucky, I hope all is well for you, cause I just love your pond with all the little frogs and fish, it was just like heaven! Keep us posted on any signs of life this spring as I am sure we are all "dying" to know! He he he

 

[Mucky_Waters]

Well mucky, I hope all is well for you, cause I just love your pond with all the little frogs and fish, it was just like heaven! Keep us posted on any signs of life this spring as I am sure we are all "dying" to know! He he he

Hmmm... I guess i should say thanks for the compliments, but I do think I detect a little sarcasm in that post?

 

[callingcolleen1]

No sarcasam, Really just very curious to know how things go. Seen too many sad stories and Really wish your fish & foggiest all the best!

 

[sissy]

be nice be nice .pond nice .All that snow is actually on top of your pond mucky / blow torch and no snow , flooded pond . oops not so good .

 

[mtpond]

Wow! Hoping you have a good out come this spring.

 

[Craig58]

Hey Mucky.. I'm going with "C". They'll all (or most) will survive. I think you've done everything right.

But I think I might consider shoveling some of the snow off he pond. I don't think I'd be worry about the pH change as much as that the snow acts as an insulator and will help to keep it frozen longer.

I'd take as much snow off as I could with out scraping the ice. (The noise might disturb the sleeping fish and you don't want to shock them).

Then when you get any sunny days, hopefully it'll start to thin up the ice.

Craig

 

[j.w]

Ok went to like your post Craig and ran out of likes from using just 3 in a row. I'm w/ you on him getting as much snow off as possible!

 

[Mucky_Waters]

Hey Mucky.. I'm going with "C". They'll all (or most) will survive. I think you've done everything right.

But I think I might consider shoveling some of the snow off he pond. I don't think I'd be worry about the pH change as much as that the snow acts as an insulator and will help to keep it frozen longer.

I'd take as much snow off as I could with out scraping the ice. (The noise might disturb the sleeping fish and you don't want to shock them).

Then when you get any sunny days, hopefully it'll start to thin up the ice.

Craig

Hmmm, I just saw your post now Craig or I would have replied sooner. What you are saying makes sense, except the "snow" was pretty compact and actually more like ice, and it would have been pretty hard to shovel it. And as for doing it before it turned to ice, if you knew how much snow we have been shoveling around here this winter you wouldn't be suggesting that to me. :grumble: Besides, a lot of that snow you see on the pond has already been "shoveled" once already, it came off the roof above. I cleared it off the roof as a precaution so I didn't get too much buildup up there and have the roof collapse. There just wasn't anywhere else to put it easily, I ran out of places to pile it.
Anyway, it starting melt and the ice has softened up enough that I was able to remove a big chunk of it, enough to see into the water. I'm happy to say that I saw some fish swimming around down there, so at least some of them are still alive. The water does look a little murky though, certainly a lot less clear than I'd hoped it would be. I think tomorrow I'll do some water tests, and do a small water change. Maybe even try and remove some of the snow.
I also opened up the bottom drain and drained some of the water that has been sitting in that pipe all winter into a bucket,,,, phew! As expected, it smells of H2S.

 

[Mucky_Waters]

Interesting water test readings on the pond. I first did tests on open water at surface level and ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels were all 0. The PH was 6.5, but the GH was 80 and the KH was 70, which both are very low. I tested the water hardness twice to be sure, and it came out the same the second time. Then I decided to drain some more of the rank water out of the bottom drain, once it ran clear I shut off the drain valve on the settling tank and opened the bottom drain and let it fill. As it was filling I started thinking I should test this water too, just out of curiosity, to see if it was any different than the surface water. I'm glad I did because it tested radically different on some of the parameters. Again, the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels were all 0, but the PH was about 7 this time, maybe 7.5. And the real shock was the GH was 180, and the KH 170. Both were double what surface water reading were. The only thing I can attribute this to is that the snow and ice melt water is lighter than the hard water and is floating at the surface.

BTW, I saw lots more fish today, so far so good. I am trickling water into the pond to replace the 100 gallons I dumped into the settling tank, and I think tomorrow I will fill up the other tanks and turn on the waterfall pump.

 

[Mucky_Waters]

Started the waterfall and skimmer pumps up yesterday, and with regard to the theme of this thread I thought I should report something I noticed.
All winter long the temperature in the bottom of my pond stayed within 3.5 - 3.9 C, but when I started up the waterfall the top and the bottom water started to mix and the water at the bottom of the pond started to cool off. In fact by the late afternoon the water in the bottom of the pond had dropped to 1.5 C. That is the colder than the water had been all winter long under the ice. I hope the fish didn't mind.
I turned the pumps off before it cooled off for the night, and will be running them again today. I think this might be the best course until the temps stay above 0 C all night long.

 

[Dave 54]

My first winter after 22 years of indoor koi keeping was the coldest on record for the UK we hit -10c I was fearful that our heat pampered koi woyuldn't make it through we had made a frame and bubble wrapped it to cover the pond, the filter housing still open to the elecments was wrapped in those beach windbreaks 6 in total.
We made it through with no losses (I was amazed) ever since then weve polycarbonated the top of the pond insulated everything you can think of with double glazing for the top of the filter house.
With the remote sensor reading we have a temperature of 14.6c (heat supplied by a small 800 watt oil heated radiator sat in the filter housing) its heated the water to 14c which is great.
It looks like winter is coming back over the next couple of days but further north including Scotland hopefully it'll miss us.
Cant wait to take those covers off

rgds

Dave

 

[MitchM]

The ice has receded to about 50% cover in the last week and the bottom water temp is rising quite a bit, I think.
2 degree Fahrenheit increase today alone. 1 week ago the water temp was 36F. Today it is 39.9F.
Ambient temp is 1C/34F at night, 8C/47F during the day.

 

[MitchM]

Bottom water temperature has reached 55F today, so I can start feeding the fish again. Ambient temp today was the warmest this year so far, 17.8C/64F
I've seen 1 koi and 3 shubunkins this spring, out of the 3 koi and 4 shubunkins last October.