Aerator and bottom heater?

[waynefrcan]

Ok thanks, I read through it. The cold water fungus is active at 39F. What the heck? Now we try and give the fish some warmer water and then the fungus gets them!!!!!!

I give up, I'm unpluging everything and they live they live, they die they die!

 

[callingcolleen1]

Wayne, don't panic, it may still be OK, like I said, I had a fungus many years ago one spring everywhere, it just went away naturally and the fish are still fine to this day! I think your fish got stressed from the ice being frozen solid for a long time. Keep the heater on, melt the ice with the heater, keep the water moving, sunshine can help, please don't give up!! That's what I did and it went away by itself. If you refreeze them hard they will get very stressed and they can't take anymore stress right now. All is not lost, they can still be OK, please don't give up, I had many problems too in the very beginning. Next spring you need to work on getting some big sedges planted in your pond, the fish all like to winter under the big sedges. relax, calm down, have a beer, don't make any rash moves like suddenly refeezing the pond solid and throwing in "the towel" just yet!

 

[waynefrcan]

I think it's more like too many temp changes trying to get the bottom temp above 32.5. What if I shut down all heaters? That article said below 39 the fungus is inactive.

 

[callingcolleen1]

I think if you shut down the heater the pond will freeze very hard, the gases will build back up, the fish will suffer more, and you will be back to square one. Let the fish heal, leave the heater on and keep the water circulating, the fungus can go away, as it did for me. You can also find different types of Fungus treatment for the pond, and Pond peat is a natural fungicide, but it would take lots to treat your whole pond. Just wait it out, the fish can still be OK, as mine all survived when I had fungus everywhere, pond rocks, fish, liner, and it just went away, although that was in the early spring and the sun was getting stronger very day. Right now the sun is getting lower on the horizon everyday, but that will change on Dec 21, then the sun will slowly start to rise higher and get stronger.

 

[waynefrcan]

Top scientists say Dec 21 will have lots of sun and death!

 

[mtpond]

Wayne, I had a goldfish last spring that had fungus on both sides of its body and I'm talking about big patches. I pulled it out and scraped the fungus off it and treated it for a couple of months and then put it back in the pond and it did fine last summer. I'm hoping this spring I don't have the same problem with the goldfish. So far this winter it seems to be doing just fine.

 

[callingcolleen1]

See Wayne, it will be OK. It could be that only the one fish has it, he may have been weakened from the move last fall when you cleaned the pond, as just netting them can be hard on them.

Back when I had fungus, I used to obsess over the leaves and made sure there was no leaves in pond, and used to also clean the pond to death, and that is when I had problems. Now that I never clean the pond, just the filters I have no problems. I also think you need lots of plants and and more natural setting for fish, like some leaves at the bottom of pond, or get some pond peat, but I think leaves do the same thing as the expensive pond peat. Some leaves are very good for pond, provides natural setting for fish, and they look kind of nice sitting on the bottom of the pond, with their orange and yellow colors!

Darn it, made a nice cup of coffee amd forgot I have not cream! Hate when that happens! Now I got to drink it black! Grrrrr

 

[callingcolleen1]

Can't stress out over the end of the world, got lots of things to do before the "end" gets here, like paint the kitchen a nice new exciting color, and fix the things that need to be fixed, got a wood stove just in case and a generator, and and large stash of canned food, just in case ..... been saving wood, will burn the fence if I run out of wood! Ha ha ha

 

[crsublette]

Wayne, have a look at this PDF: http://northidahokoi...epingspring.pdf I came across it the other day and it seems to have some good information, including "Cold Water Fungus" starting on page 10. The PDF also addresses the topic of adding salt that we were talking about in the other thread.

Good read, thanks for sharing. As the pdf says, it is sometimes the primary ailment, but most of the time it is a secondary ailment created due to poor pond husbandry. Proper pond husbandry makes the difference in lowering the potential risk of creating secondary ailments, such as the fungus.

 

[brandonsdad02]

I have gotten most of the leaves out of my pond and the water is back to almost clear. I removed my skippy filter and with in a few days the water was clearing up. I'm not sure what the temp is since mr gunner chewed up my thermometer. We have been having a very weird fall and winter so far. Wayne, don't give up, your fishies need you. If your going to throw in the towel. Give the towel to the fish to stay warm.

 

[MitchM]

Today is the first day in about 6 weeks that all 4 aeration holes have opened up. We've had 2 days of temperatures in the 0C/32F range.
My bottom probe is measuring 52F and the upper probe is measuring 33F. I'm wondering if the bottom probe has settled in a pond liner flap right next to the pond bottom. I have no other explanation why the temp would be reading so warm.
I might pull out the bottom probe and try to position it in a different place.

 

[MitchM]

Moving the probe made little difference. 51.7F 5 feet down.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Mitch your pond is quite deep and very large, so it is behaving the way a natural lake would, warm water at the bottom, cold at the top.

Wayne, did you go take a look at the pond today? Did you find any other fish with the fungus? I read that attachment on the fungus, and it says that basicly the fish were breathing in ammonia and got stressed which lead to fungus. A very clean pond is more likely to have toxic levels of ammonia, and here is why, when you change the water, you raise the PH level, and our water here in town has a very very high PH level, and that is from the South Saskatchewan River. I know you got the North Saskatchewan river, and I would bet that if you test the water comming out of your tap, you will probally find that the PH is well over 8, and close to 9! A high PH is not good for pond, as you will get toxic levels of ammonia with the high PH.

Pond Peat , or natural leaves, will lower the PH so that ammonia will not become toxic. When you use liquid Pond Peat, the water will darken to a golden color, the leaves do the same thing, turn the water a nice golden color also. Natural ponds come with leaves, people write stories and books about "on Golden Pond", as natural ponds are natually golden. so why do we try to keep a "sterial hole in the ground", and call it a pond? Real ponds have large sedges, leaf litter, snails, leeches, and other aquatic life, and I try to keep my pond as natural as possible, and after many many years, I found it to be the best way to have a "naturally" clean "carefree" pond.

if you turn your heater off to stop the growth of the fungus, the pond will freeze over and the ammonia will build back up, and the fish will go back to breathing in the ammonia. Then the cycle will repeat itself when the ice defrosts., and next time the fish will be even weaker.... If you leave the heater running were the water flows well, the heater will evenly heat the whole pond, this is very important, as you don't want to have large temperture swings from the deep end to the shallow end, as that can make the fish sick too. I always stress the point of having the heater where the water flows well for that reason alone. Once the heater has been on for a couple days, the ice should thin out and melt, exposing a large open hole, for the sun to shine in and then the built up gases can escape freely.

Charles, Wayne takes very good care of his pond, and cleans it very well, and I don't clean my pond at all, so I should have the Fungus according to your theory, but I don't. As I have said before, you can "clean your pond to death", which I used to do, a very long time ago.... and that created the problems! Now I don't disturb the fish at all before winter, and I leave some leaves in the pond, and I have some sludge at the bottom pond, and that's OK, cause it's all natural and provides a home to the snails, leeches and good bacteria. (They all work together with the plants)

Wayne, I can mail you pieces of my pond... a box of yellow flag roots and other plant shoots from my pond in the spring if you like.
Cheer up, it's not the end of the world!

 

[waynefrcan]

I really think the cold water makes the fish stupid. Pea Brain freeze. They swim around the pond and can't remember where the warm and best O2 is. Why else would a large goldfish go to the coldest end of the pond. That's why I put a aeration zone there, as last winter was some fish kills at that end.

Yes my pond got cleaned out right before freeze up. I will test some pond samples today. The bottom heater is slowly raising the overall pond temp as I see open areas where there is no heater or aerator.

 

[crsublette]

Charles, Wayne takes very good care of his pond, and cleans it very well, and I don't clean my pond at all, so I should have the Fungus according to your theory, but I don't. As I have said before, you can "clean your pond to death", which I used to do, a very long time ago.... and that created the problems! Now I don't disturb the fish at all before winter, and I leave some leaves in the pond, and I have some sludge at the bottom pond, and that's OK, cause it's all natural and provides a home to the snails, leeches and good bacteria. (They all work together with the plants)

You should really create a thread, "Ailments of a Pond Too Clean", where you describe all of the problems you experienced for having a pond too clean. It'd be an interesting read.

Honestly, I only believe what people say in their testimonials as far as I can throw them, and since there is nothing in my hand, there isn't much I can throw. Still, I do give folk the benefit of the doubt. I think people put the best face forward on their ponds, which is fine. I have no idea what problems are not being told and I really do not need, nor care, to know unless it is what is killing their fish or making their pond a nightmare.

Ponders are better off with having hard water. A proper bio-filtration will consume the extra toxic ammonia in harder water while soft water risks pH crashes (which does occur naturally in nature's ponds) killing aquatic life in areas.

I read that attachment on the fungus, and it says that basicly the fish were breathing in ammonia and got stressed which lead to fungus.

PDF specifically states all of the stress factors, not just ammonia. PDF most importantly points the fungus out to be the result, ie secondary ailment, after being stressed from some other variable even though there is the rare occasion of it being the primary ailment.

A very clean pond is more likely to have toxic levels of ammonia, and here is why, when you change the water, you raise the PH level, and our water here in town has a very very high PH level, and that is from the South Saskatchewan River. I know you got the North Saskatchewan river, and I would bet that if you test the water comming out of your tap, you will probally find that the PH is well over 8, and close to 9! A high PH is not good for pond, as you will get toxic levels of ammonia with the high PH.

"Clean ponds" do not dictate higher NH3 (toxic ammonia). There is less acids to consume the pH buffer in a clean pond, but the lack of these acids do not actively create a progressingly higher pH with water changes. Actually, if you want your pH to swing less from water changes, then do your best at controlling the organics in the water. Organic's is one variable that creates acids, consuming the pH buffer, lowering the pH.

Ponds are golden due to the decomposition of organics. The decomposition process releases substances that changes the color of the water.

A problem of bulk water changes with hard water is that it can cause a pH swing. I use the trickle water change method, also called "flow through" system.

The often recommended pH of ponds hovers between 7.6~8.4 fish. For aquaponics, in an controlled environment, 6.8~7.4pH is recommended. There are many, in Arizona I know for sure, where they're source water hovers at 8.6 and sometimes higher and this source water is used for water changes. I know many here have continued to keep very high pH in their ponds closer to the 9.0 pH end due to the waterchanges with the high pH source water. It takes alot of soft water to dilute very hard, high pH water. In just my little 435 gallon setup, I had to add 60% (261gallons) of di-RO water to just so I could have a 125 kH and ~7.8pH; my source water is 8.5pH.

There is a fish alkalosis problem only when the pH is too high for a particular fish species.