Woke up this morning 1/4 of my water missing and most of fish dead

[JohnHuff]

- Algae blooms if there is nutrients in the pond.
- I have my pump off for the same reason as you, but some people way up north keep theirs running all the time.
- The deaths won't have anything to do with the heater.
- Bring a sample of your water to the pet/fish store. They should be able to test it for you, especially the store you got the strips from.
- That type of filter you have is too weak for the pond/fish you have. You're going to have open that up and clean that a lot when the pond is active.
- Algaecide should be safe for fish, but it could be the chemicals from decomposing algae that killed them. Keep in mind that the algaecide was used two weeks ago and the fish died all at once yesterday.
- After I turned my pumps on, the prefilters looked like that too. I cleaned them once, turned the pumps on again and now my pond is clear. Your filters are doing what they're supposed to do. I have an 800g pond, I have 4 pre-filters so it'll take them longer to clog up.

 

[Dave 54]

Most koi keepers keep on trucking right the way through the winter Paul our own pond is covered by Policarbonate roofing all the pipes are lagged weve even boxed everything in and insulated the walls , the result's a pond than never gets bellow 7.c even at -15c .
We continue with water changes too using the trickle method where you use the ambient temperture of the ponds water to warm the water going in , if you get this right you'll loose less than .1-.2 of a degree.
I agree with John about the high nutrients causing your algal bloom (just home much are you feeding your fish at the moment , or have you run off into your pond from somewhere in your garden.
At the momennt our own koi are recieving just ywo feeds daily , this will increase towards the summer to around four daily , at the moment you should only be feeding wheatgerm if you can add a little garlic extract to this food as it will help protect your fish against parasites but please try to remember this in future "your fish have just come out of a long hard winter which has left them at their lowest eb health wise".
Did you know at 2c koi are nearer to death than being alive , the colder iit gets from 2c the more the chance they wont get through the winter
Please as I said yesterday do not use test strips they do not give you n accurate picture of whats hgoing on with your perameters API do a complete pond test kit as do Tetra so go out and buy one soonest.
Again I agree with John that its most probably the toxins released by the dying algae that most probably finished your fish off in their already weakend state it was the final nail in the cofffin for them.

Dave

 

[CountryEscape]

I don't think he's feeding anything right now, ice just recently left his pond, my guess. I live in south/central IL. I have tons of algae, too. Once the ice was gone (last 2 weeks), the algae went nuts. If it's a sunny day, get lots floating to the surface, clogging my skimmer filter. I agree with John, get a drop test kit. I got the type with ALL the tests in it, lasts forever, but some on here say to replace the set after a couple of years to make sure all tests are accurate. The test strips are just not accurate enough.
Glad you found your leak and sounds like it will be a semi-easy fix. I, too, had frozen lines underground. Wasn't able to get that pond up and running until about a week ago. Once the water freezes in the lines, it's very hard to thaw them out until the ground also thaws out. Be patient with the rest of your water lines. If you are able to keep the water running through them, they will stay open longer, but this past winter, I think many had lines freeze up no matter what they did. My problem came with 22 hours of no electricity, and below zero temps, high winds, snow, etc. Couldn't help that!
Sorry to hear about your fish, too. But, on the issue of some laying on their sides, I have learned (in my goldfish pond) that they sometimes lay over on the bottom, but are not dead. It's some type of hibernation mode. If touched, mine swim off. They are all fine now, but have seen many of them doing this since January. I think the extreme cold we had, then swings with warm/cold have caused the water temps to bounce more than normal, too.
Hope you find out what killed the fish. It's a learning experience. You sure came to the right place to find answers. I enjoyed reading all of them as well! It's only my 4th year, and still learning tons daily.

 

[dieselplower]

Thanks for trying the nitrite / nitrate tests again. Guess we have no luck on this one. Just for the record, I have a huge amount of string algaa coming out of this Winter too.

 

[Dave 54]

Never suffer from it ourselves there most be something in the fact that we carry on as normal throughout the winter our only algae is like a closely mannicured lawn were the koi have cropped it close.
I understand that we have totally different winters in the UK but the lowest weve gotten since going outdoors with our koi outside temperature wise was -15c nd we only got as low as 7c under the policarbonate roofing , so what is it we are doing different .???
1) I believe is leaving our filters running 24/7 365 days of the year (they say moving water doesnt freeze , we seem to prove this).
2) insulation and Lagging .
3) Covering the pond and filters in deacking and policarbonate sheeting .
4) Water changes on a weekly basis where ever possible (oviously not at -5c ).
5) routine filter maintenance throughout..
So all in all not that much but it makes a huge difference , I'm not alone in this many other UK koi keepers do the same so there is something to be said for it , plus in the five years outdoors weve so far had no fatalities during the winter period .
Would anyone be willing to experiment a little next winter to see if it makes a difference to your pond and fish ???

Dave

 

[slakker]

I was thinking re: frozen pipes... water expands when frozen and can cause a burst pipe which may not cause a leak if the ice is blocking it. But with temp warming up, the ice may start to melt and the leak is now showing from the pipe...

 

[Paul S]

Thank you everyone for all you help with my situation. This was definitely a major learning experience for me.
My pipes are buried underground and they still froze after our winter. We had -15F which is about -26C with negative windshields on top of those temperatures. There were 3 spread out weeks of solids negative temps this winter.

I think I'm going to redu the piping and insulate them better this spring as well as add a prefilter and try to start over with a new pond and hope this never happens... I lost 7 beautiful koi. All were 10" babies. 1 vanished out of my pond right before the winter when I was putting a net over the pond to catch the autumn leaves and they other 6 died the other day.

 

[Big Lou]

If you are going to shut down all water circulation it is critical that you have a way to drain all piping during the shut down winterize process. I am certain a professional pumbler or like can configure such a system for you. Good luck.

 

[RobAmy]

I agree with Big Lou on draining the system. I designed mine so all the water drains out of the lines by gravity. One Bio filter is above ground with a bottom drain. The skimmer has a union I disconnect and the line flows back into the skimmer, I fill that with pool noodles and that will freeze. My waterfall filter is below grade so I just vacuum the water out before my shutdown. Real simple setup. I take the skimmer pump and put it in the deep part of the pond for the winter.

 

[Paul S]

If you are going to shut down all water circulation it is critical that you have a way to drain all piping during the shut down winterize process. I am certain a professional pumbler or like can configure such a system for you. Good luck.

For next winter I figured out I can remove the cover on my bottom drain and put in a long piece of 3" PVC into the drain (that sticks out of the water) which should fit snug and run the pump a moment to clear out the water and leave it like that until spring.

I think it also would have helped if i kept an aerator on the bottom of the pond over the winter, though my pond never froze over entirely. But maybe my pond was really depleted of oxygen.

Im also thinking of a better placement for my heaters, instead of the bottom, maybe suspend them midlevel or top of pond?
in the beginning of winter I had three 500watt heaters on the bottom and the pond would not freeze but then I thought it might be to warm so I removed one of them and left only 1000watt which kept most of the pond unfrozen besides the edges.

Well sInce I lost all my fish i think it would be a good idea to re-do my entire pond to prevent this from ever happening again.
-Im going to redu the bottom drain with cement, (I buried it with dirt, the ground settled and is uneven instead of sloping)
-re-run the main pipe that connects the bottom drain to pump so that its not underground,( therefore its easier to get to if anything leaks and that way I can insulate it better since it froze when it was buried in the ground.) Also i fear it may have tiny leaks in the joints from a poor glue job as i lose about an inch of water a week
-install a pre-filter in addition to my pressurized UV filter
-install my pump in a different location (currently its next to my waterfall in a tote box in the ground)
-build a wooden cover for pump and filter area

Anyone have any tips or advice for my pond revamp?

 

[brokensword]

Well, I'll tell you what I do as Chicago should be similar to Detroit, near where I live. I use only an aerator to keep a hole open in the winter. I do have an emergency cattle trough heater suspended/floating just in case the aerator fails and I need a quick way to open a hole. From what I've read, you should have a deeper pond, 3' minimum, 4' preferred, and deeper than that if possible. The water will cool in the winter until it hits 39 degrees F and then invert. That is, the warmer water will then be at the bottom. As long as you don't disturb this process, the fish should be just fine. Gf are very tough, with Koi not far behind. O2 should be in abundance unless you have a lot of decaying organic matter AND no way for the associated gasses to escape. Hence the hole. Some use a pump aimed skyward to move water and keep an opening, some add heaters. I didn't want to deal with a huge added expense when just digging deeper and keeping a hole open sounded easy enough. I have a submersible, so no bottom drain to worry about. When I shut down the pump for the winter, the water drains back into the pond as I have my flex pipe buried just beneath the soil. That is, I let gravity feed the water backwards and don't worry about freezing pipes. And since my pump remains under the water, it's safe too.

This winter, up until the past couple of weeks, despite record lows and excessive snowfall, the pond kept it's hole open until the tubing must have burst and thus, I have my first winter problem after 3 winters. If I'd had two aerators, one new and one older, I doubt I'd have had any problem at all, and so that's my next followup project. I'm not one that adheres to using a pump to move water all winter as I don't want to mix the colder water near the ice/top of the pond and the warmer water at the bottom. There's too many lakes/ponds in nature without any flow at all and the fish do just fine unless there's ice coverage/snow coverage for too long a time, THEN you get the 'winter fish kills' that naturally happen.

Anyway, the idea is to keep decaying vegetation low, keep your fish load proper, open/keep open a hole in the ice to let any buildup of gasses escape, and don't feed your fish when the temps are consistently below 50 degrees F. So you don't need the heaters, you don't need water movement (imo), and if you use an aerator, don't 'flood' the pond with air nor have the stone/opening very deep; 18" is good. There's not a lot of cost nor labor in this method, and that's the one I use.

YMMV


Michael

 

[Waterbug]

I know it's widely believed that ice bursts pipe, and that's fine for dinner party conversation. But if you're looking to redesign I think it's worth understanding this a bit more.

Ice doesn't expand. But it does take up more space than water. That may sound like the same thing but there's a big difference plumbing wise.

When a water molecule freezes it takes up more space. In a bowl of water no problem, it just pushes the other water molecules out of the way and the water level in the bowl just moves up which push against the air which moves out of the way. All the water in the bowl can freeze and there will be no damage.

What happens if the top of the bowl is sealed? The ice molecule would still push against other water molecules and the water level in the bowl would rise and push against the air molecules which now can't escape the bowl because it's sealed. The result is pressure inside the bowl (both water and air pressure) would increase. As more water molecules convert to ice the pressure would grow and grow until the bowl or seal broke, unless of course the bowl and seal were strong enough to contain the pressure.

Same thing goes for pipes. A pipe has to be closed at both ends. In most ponds that's not the case unless there are some valves that are closed. I don't know your exact plumbing layout, but for sure you want an open system.

Here's a picture of copper pipes that burst.

And PVC

As you can see the holes are explosive.

Having said that, winter is still hard on everything. Cold does make PVC more brittle, things do move. Hard to say why a pipe would crack. Would be nice to see a picture of the crack and location.

I have seen people try to keep pipes from freezing by adding valves to shut off and drain water. But these schemes can greatly increase the risk of burst pipe by making a closed system. So imo it's worth the time and research and understand the process.
Link 1
Link 2
Link 3
Many more available via Google.

 

[Dave's pond Indiana]

I know it's widely believed that ice bursts pipe, and that's fine for dinner party conversation. But if you're looking to redesign I think it's worth understanding this a bit more.

Ice doesn't expand. But it does take up more space than water. That may sound like the same thing but there's a big difference plumbing wise.

When a water molecule freezes it takes up more space. In a bowl of water no problem, it just pushes the other water molecules out of the way and the water level in the bowl just moves up which push against the air which moves out of the way. All the water in the bowl can freeze and there will be no damage.

What happens if the top of the bowl is sealed? The ice molecule would still push against other water molecules and the water level in the bowl would rise and push against the air molecules which now can't escape the bowl because it's sealed. The result is pressure inside the bowl (both water and air pressure) would increase. As more water molecules convert to ice the pressure would grow and grow until the bowl or seal broke, unless of course the bowl and seal were strong enough to contain the pressure.

Same thing goes for pipes. A pipe has to be closed at both ends. In most ponds that's not the case unless there are some valves that are closed. I don't know your exact plumbing layout, but for sure you want an open system.

Here's a picture of copper pipes that burst.

And PVC

As you can see the holes are explosive.

Having said that, winter is still hard on everything. Cold does make PVC more brittle, things do move. Hard to say why a pipe would crack. Would be nice to see a picture of the crack and location.

I have seen people try to keep pipes from freezing by adding valves to shut off and drain water. But these schemes can greatly increase the risk of burst pipe by making a closed system. So imo it's worth the time and research and understand the process.
Link 1
Link 2
Link 3
Many more available via Google.

OK Mr. Wizzard. LOL

 

[Paul S]

Here is my current set up, I have the pipe connecting the bottom drain running underground, under waterfall and to ball valve and pump then to filter. The pipe crack near the pump and the pipe frozen somewhere probbaly near top layer and then it thawer it drained my pond a little

 

[slakker]

another thing to consider is the frost line... knowing that depth will be helpful as by definition, it's the expected depth at which ground water will freeze in winter in your area. It'll vary year to year based on how cold the winters get, but knowing that will also help design how you run your piping and what to insulate and what to drain...