Koi Died

[teeemkay]

I lost one of my koi this morning (or at some point yesterday...the ONE day I wasn't around to at least take a quick peek at the pond). I have two left. The old owners had 5 koi in the pond before they moved, which still surprised me. Even 3 fish seemed like a lot for that small pond. The other two fish seem to be ok for now.

 

[bettasngoldfish]

I lost one of my koi this morning (or at some point yesterday...the ONE day I wasn't around to at least take a quick peek at the pond). I have two left. The old owners had 5 koi in the pond before they moved, which still surprised me. Even 3 fish seemed like a lot for that small pond. The other two fish seem to be ok for now.

Aww, Sorry to hear you lost one of your Koi.

The old owners probably started out with much smaller fish and didn't start to have trouble until the fish grew too big for the pond.

 

[j.w]

Sorry to hear about you koi dieing Kay

 

[teeemkay]

Thanks guys. Got another problem now, though... the pond surface is all foamy. I'm assuming there is organic matter from the dead fish circulating through the system. I started a new thread with photos to discuss. I am VERY short on time to come up with a solution--I am leaving to go out of town tomorrow, so whatever I can do, I have to do tonight.

 

[Bob Huffman]

Hey, how do you guys have the weather underground show up on your posts? I want to do that.

 

[teeemkay]

http://www.wunderground.com/stickers/
Input your location and it will take you to the Sticker page. When you find the sticker you like (mine is the Classic Stickers > Gizmo Stickers > miniDial one), click on it and it will bring up the code in a pop-up box. From that code, copy ONLY the web address part that follows the img src= portion. Then go to the Signature settings for your account here and paste it in with the image tags (see below for what it should look like). Save it and it should show up.

 

[CometKeith]

Hi Teemkay. Sorry about your fish. Foaminess is typically caused by the deterioration of leaves. It's a sign of very high concentration of organic matter in your pond. It could be the fish but I doubt it.

 

[lynnsisko]

I garden in southern CT and when my pond finally was clear enough to see, I lost my two largest koi (17" and 21") and one or two smaller shebunkins. I have two smaller koi - one 8" and another probably around 4" (I haven not seen the 4" one yet) and handful of shebunkins. I have a heater in the pond and believe it's working. This year was one of the coldest we've had since I've had a pond. I've checked out some of the other threads and it looks like there could have been an oxygen or nitrogen issue. I'll get the water tested as soon as I can but does anyone have any other ideas? What should I do next year to help prevent losing any more fish?

Thanks!

I live in north west Michigan, and our winters are very cold. Even with a pond heater to keep open water, I still cannot keep koi. They do ok until about the 3rd year then I guess they are too big and don't make it through the winter. I now only do goldfish. I usually lose about 5 to 10 depending upon the winter, even with a heater.

 

[Lisak1]

I usually lose about 5 to 10 depending upon the winter, even with a heater

Wow. How deep is your pond? How many gallons?

 

[Meyer Jordan]

I live in north west Michigan, and our winters are very cold. Even with a pond heater to keep open water, I still cannot keep koi. They do ok until about the 3rd year then I guess they are too big and don't make it through the winter. I now only do goldfish. I usually lose about 5 to 10 depending upon the winter, even with a heater.

If you are losing 5 to 10 Goldfish a Winter, it is not from the low temperatures. Goldfish are extremely adept at surviving very low temperatures.

 

[kmarcel]

I live in Central NY and this winter was the worst. I had so many problems over the summer with flukes and fish loss (many of you on this forum helped me) that I was really more worried going into this winter and added a little extra protection. Normally I just use a deicer than comes on a timer twice a day for 2 hours each time.

This year I kept my bubbler going and it never froze over once. In fact there was at least a 4' diameter hole in the ice at all times, even when the deicer wasn't on. I ran the two bubblers lines through two pool noodles to keep it at the surface and secured the pool noodles so that they were next to each other and right near the deicer. I was very impressed with the large hole in my pond at all times. I kept the bubbler in a container wrapped with insulation (not sure if that did anything) next to my pond.

Just wanted to share the pool noodle idea. Knew I wanted to keep the bubbler going at the surface and the noodles did the job. My pond is less than 3' deep.