Devastated, lost most of my pond goldfish

[addy1]

Oh, I am so sorry to hear this

You mention storms...any chance the pond was struck by lightening? I realize that's a slim chance, but also check your equipment and make sure there isn't a slight electrical current in the pond?

In our original pond that was here when we bought the house, a filter had a slight electrical short....and the previous owners didn't have a GFC plug..... the goldfish were killed over the course of about a week's time.

wow that is bad, glad it was just the fish that were killed!

My pump is external, one thing I don't worry too much about

 

[Tula]

wow that is bad, glad it was just the fish that were killed!

My pump is external, one thing I don't worry too much about

Yes, it was very scary and we were completely unskilled ponders If I recall correctly, it wasn't in the pump, but rather in the pressurized filter's UV light.....we could actually see the black mark from the short !

 

[MitchM]

...I was wondering if there was an oxygen issue but I don't see how there could be.

I doubt it would be an issue of low oxygen. Municipal water is under pressure so it will hold more oxygen at it's 80psi (or whatever your pressure is at)
(Think of when you pour yourself a glass of water from the tap. The bubbles that form on the side of the gas is excess oxygen coming out of solution as the water warms up plus the water in the glass is now sitting at 0 psi)

 

[Mike in Vermont]

Very sorry to hear about this.

 

[Dave 54]

I understand Mitch, I suppose old habits die hard though. I can't seem to wrap my brain around not changing water.

I suppose there is always a chance of some neighbor kids doing something but I haven't noticed anything a miss in my back yard. I was wondering if maybe my neighbor (the one close to my pond) had possibly treated her yard with some type of chemicals that got into my pond. When I see her I plan to ask but I don't want to go knock on the door and seem accusatory.

Nothing wrong in doing water changes Maria I do them on a regular basis too , .
The only thing that seems to fit is a Total Oxygen Depletion or low O2 of the water which I know isnt Meters pet diagnoses but at the momet is the only one that seems to fit .
Read this FBAS article it all fits :-

http://www.fbas.co.uk/o2inp.html

Can you do an autopsy on one of the fish please Maria paying particular attention to the gills colouration at the time of death please ?
You'd not skipped on QTing anything going into the pond and you'd noticed nothing wrong prior to the die off Maria did you , be it anything that was out of the ordinary that might point to a parastic infection ?
Did the water smell of anything when you first noticed the problem , had they recently spawned sending your ammonia off the scale ?
Do you have any problems with your Ph or O2 levels , do you have a kit for that ?
Sorry for all the questions but you are one of the best fish keepers that I know on this site and if you didnt notice anything wrong prior .
Gutted for you isnt the word at this moment in time knowing the attention to detail we both use it hurts when this happens .
How many airstones have you been deployng on the pond of late ?


Dave

 

[Meyer Jordan]

If total oxygen depletion is the cause, as Dave54 proposes, then the real issue here is identifying what caused such a massive loss of Oxygen and insuring that it doesn't happen again.
Personally, I discount any Oxygen issues as Goldfish can survive for hours in anoxic conditions.

 

[Dave 54]

If total oxygen depletion is the cause, as Dave54 proposes, then the real issue here is identifying what caused such a massive loss of Oxygen and insuring that it doesn't happen again.
Personally, I discount any Oxygen issues as Goldfish can survive for hours in anoxic conditions.

I agree if it is the cause we quickly meed to get on top of this one .
We always increase the air going into the pond especially when its been warm thundery and overcaste for any period of time .
I dont doubt goldfish can survive anoxic conditions however surely the question should be "How long can they survive anoxic condditions .
The answer to that question is about 16 hrs :-

http://jeb.biologists.org/content/142/1/325.full.pdf

So anything outside that period of time Maria could have missed it , "perhaps she went straight to work and didnt check on the pond till she came home" only Maria can answer that question , I've left them till late in the afternoon to feed them before now simply because I was busy .
So she could have missed that golden hour when she could have done something about it .[nobodies fault}.

Dave

 

[Meyer Jordan]

One also has to consider the time periods immediately preceding the 16 hour limit and the time after when replenishment of the Oxygen returned, which it certainly did. It would take several hours to completely deplete a pond of Oxygen without some external catalyst and then that same catalyst would need to be removed or rendered inert before Oxygen replenishment could proceed, which we know it did because some fish survived. Too much time for an experienced aquarist and non-novice pondkeeper not to have noticed something amiss.
Making Oxygen depletion the culprit here does not hold water (no pun intended).
Some other transient element is likely to blame and may not ever be identified.

 

[RobAmy]

sorry to hear, Maria

 

[Dave 54]

One also has to consider the time periods immediately preceding the 16 hour limit and the time after when replenishment of the Oxygen returned, which it certainly did. It would take several hours to completely deplete a pond of Oxygen without some external catalyst and then that same catalyst would need to be removed or rendered inert before Oxygen replenishment could proceed, which we know it did because some fish survived. Too much time for an experienced aquarist and non-novice pondkeeper not to have noticed something amiss.
Making Oxygen depletion the culprit here does not hold water (no pun intended).
Some other transient element is likely to blame and may not ever be identified.

Well something took her fish out Meyer and Maria being the experianced pond keeper that she is would notice if she had a problem with parasites prior to their deaths which she did not .
So that leaves us with a problem as something went on that took nearly all her fish out at once ?.
I doubt very much if this is chemical but we'll see when Maria has asked the neighbour about that , I dont like mysteries Meyer and tend to worry at a problem until we get an answer.
@Tula It would be a million to one shot that Maria got hit by lightening she would have been reporting bent fish a little like my koi but that could be a possibility "we'll put that idea on hold for a moment "[ remember Tula I didnt loose any of my own koi when our own pond was struck recently] also rememember it bent two of the three koi affected by the strike Maria makes no mention of bent goldfish .
If you read this Meyer you may well change your mind about oxygen depletion killing fish over night like weve seen , it does as an answer to Marias problems fit my friend, or it have been an build up of Hydrogen Sulfide in Marias pond.
But my bet is as I've already said and is the more than likely the culprit here . :-

http://www.luresext.edu/aquaculture/mortalityinponds.htm

I think Maria after shes read it may be that one step closer to getting an answer

Dave

.

 

[Nepen]

Oh I'm so so sorry Maria. I hope you find out what caused this and able to prevent it to happen again. I dont have anything to add. sorry.

 

[bettasngoldfish]

thanks everyone

@Nepen I certainly hope it never happens again myself but if I don't know what happened how the heck do I stop it?......

I would like to report that last night after work I went to check on Shamu and she is still alive and well as my blue shubunkin (I thought he was one of the dead I pulled from the pond so I was glad to see him) I could not find the small orange and white goldfish so I'm thinking it probably didn't make it.

 

[Nepen]

thanks everyone

@Nepen I certainly hope it never happens again myself but if I don't know what happened how the heck do I stop it?......

I would like to report that last night after work I went to check on Shamu and she is still alive and well as my blue shubunkin (I thought he was one of the dead I pulled from the pond so I was glad to see him) I could not find the small orange and white goldfish so I'm thinking it probably didn't make it.

Yep I know, it's very scary not knowing the cause, I really hope you figure it out. i know how you must feel. I killed almost all of my fish in my indoor tank once. I got a larger tank and set it all up and didnt put enough de-chlorine in (ran out) and though that with running the tank for a few house should be enough to get all the chlorine out, I was wrong. I felt horrible. (but I managed to save a baby goldfish that was almost dead, she was laying down gasping for a week, but made it out alive and now thriving)

crossing my fingers for you. big hugs!!

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Well something took her fish out Meyer and Maria being the experianced pond keeper that she is would notice if she had a problem with parasites prior to their deaths which she did not .
So that leaves us with a problem as something went on that took nearly all her fish out at once ?.
I doubt very much if this is chemical but we'll see when Maria has asked the neighbour about that , I dont like mysteries Meyer and tend to worry at a problem until we get an answer.
@Tula It would be a million to one shot that Maria got hit by lightening she would have been reporting bent fish a little like my koi but that could be a possibility "we'll put that idea on hold for a moment "[ remember Tula I didnt loose any of my own koi when our own pond was struck recently] also rememember it bent two of the three koi affected by the strike Maria makes no mention of bent goldfish .
If you read this Meyer you may well change your mind about oxygen depletion killing fish over night like weve seen , it does as an answer to Marias problems fit my friend, or it have been an build up of Hydrogen Sulfide in Marias pond.
But my bet is as I've already said and is the more than likely the culprit here . :-

http://www.luresext.edu/aquaculture/mortalityinponds.htm

I think Maria after shes read it may be that one step closer to getting an answer

Dave

.

Well, let's go back and look at the facts in this incident and compare them to what is said in your linked article (which, btw, is pretty accurate).
1) Maria's largest fish, Shamu, survived. In Oxygen depletion the larger fish expire first.
2) There was heavy rain for one day. Article supports what I previously said that Oxygen depletion develops over an extended period of time. Maria made no mention of several days of heavy overcast skies.
3) Algae bloom can be discounted.
4) Hydrogen sulfide can almost immediately be ruled out as a sludge (sediment) layer several millimeters or inches deep is required before the required anaerobic conditions exist for the formation of H2S. I doubt if Maria has this amount of sediment in her pond.

Hopefully Maria will discover exactly what occurred, but the farther in time that it gets from the date of occurrence, the more difficult it will be to determine the cause. And this is truly unfortunate.

 

[cas]

I wanted to ask how Shamu was, but was afraid to bring it up. Glad he and one other are hanging in there!