Lessons learned from this winter's extreme cold

[addy1]

I thought it might be nice to have a thread where ponders could post lessons learned after the extreme cold of this winter. Might help save someones fish in future winters.

Discussions are welcome, but I was thinking it is more of .............OPPS should not have done this!
Any issues run into are welcome.

 

[addy1]

Lesson here in Maryland, my friend Tom used an aerator to keep a hole open, too powerful for his pond size. During the end of February when we hit the -10 degree range, his fish died. From all investigation it was due to super chilling the pond water. (We think)

LESSON: get a pond breather http://www.amazon.com/8PB-Breather-Heated-Aerator-Watts/dp/B000HHM9U0
or a stock tank heater.

 

[Dave 54]

I agee (fighting the cat for control of the keyboard) down pepsi
Even with our covers on we turn our areator way down to a trickle because super chilling can be a big issue in that though we are lucky because we have a mass of areation going on deep in our filters which are all tucked away in their insulated filter housing so we dont have to worry non about oxygenationof the water entering in the pond.
I still believe strongly that covering the pond with double thickness policarbonate roofing would be a way forwards for many plus if anyone plans a new pond in the northern climes it would be a very good idea to plan in insulation of pipes pond filters etc.
I also believe in working through the winter months with water changes using the trickle method we employ with the ambient temperature of the pondwarming the chilled water it all gives our koi that extra edge when it comes to the spring and what we call Areomonas Alley ......

Dave

 

[JohnHuff]

This year, instead of regular PJ's, I bought base layer tops and bottoms to wear to bed. I sleep like a wild man and when you wear regular PJ's, they roll up your legs and body and leave your skin exposed to the cold. With base layers, they're tight and it feels like a second skin.

Of course Long Johns have been around for a long time, but it makes me look like a decrepit old man:
http://theedmontonian.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/long-johns.jpg

With base layers, I look like this:
http://thumbs4.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/myu-4uYjKnOuYbrH1z09TKA.jpg

What would you prefer to look like? Anyway, that's what I learned from this Winter's extreme cold.

Edit: The image loader isn't working. I couldn't load the pics directly.

 

[Dave 54]

Hey bro I'm a buff man myself cant get much wilder than that

Dave

 

[JohnHuff]

Hey bro I'm a buff man myself cant get much wilder than that ( LOL)

Dave

That picture at the end of my signature is not what I look like at all. That's what j.w. thinks I look like.

 

[Dave 54]

Ahh j.w. and her gif's dont you just love her for them

Dave

 

[Tula]

Hmmmmmm. Interested in the pond breather. I ran my aerator and pond de icer this winter and my five koi all survived. My air stones rested on top of my lily baskets, off to one side of the pond. The koi could still be away from the aerator in the deepest part of the pond, or other areas as well.

I need a better cover....my Newfoundland jumped through the net! LOL I like some of the postings I've seen where folks stake their netting, so you can still reach inside the pond. Something for me to consider.

 

[MitchM]

It's too early for me to say how successful these pond breathers were here.
We had temperatures down around -40C/-40F and wind chills down to -47C/-52F and they kept going, even after 2 days around that temperature.
The bottom water layer temperature has remained a steady 3C/38F all winter and the solid ice cover on the pond prevented a potential safety hazard.
I think an open water winter pond is a safety hazard for wildlife or kids to fall into, and an electrical hazard with how short the cords are on those cattle trough heaters (5 foot cord length). I have 3' plant shelves which means the electrical plug-in would have been over pond water or melted snow. The electrical cords heat up and melt their way down into the ice.

I also wonder if it would be beneficial to have more circulation within the pond so the bottom temperature was lower.
I'm assuming that the fish are staying in the warmer 3C/38F water layer.
I suspect that at a temperature of 3C/38F, the fish' metabolism is higher than at say, 0.5C/33F, and that makes me concerned that 7 months under the ice may be too long for the fish to survive on their fat reserves, even if the pond was sufficiently oxygenated. They may have a better chance at the lower temperature long term.
Having more circulation within the pond would reduce the ice cover and minimize the total ice cover time.

I'll be sure to post the results as they develop. We still have a solid 100% ice cover.
I am thankful for the lower energy usage for the pond breathers.
The pond breathers use 40 watts each while the cattle trough heater cycles on and off at 1500 watts.
.

 

[MitchM]

...
I still believe strongly that covering the pond with double thickness policarbonate roofing would be a way forwards for many plus if anyone plans a new pond in the northern climes it would be a very good idea to plan in insulation of pipes pond filters etc.
I also believe in working through the winter months with water changes using the trickle method we employ with the ambient temperature of the pondwarming the chilled water it all gives our koi that extra edge when it comes to the spring and what we call Areomonas Alley ......

Dave

Dave, trickle lines would not work here. Exterior water pipes for our homes need to buried 2.4 meters/8 feet deep.
You could not plumb a pond for that.

.

 

[pecan]

We had a very mild winter (hit 0 for a week in Dec but other than that didn't get below 15 F). But I lost my two smallest koi and a yearling comet.

I am still confused about what may have occurred and don't know for sure. All tests of the water were fine. I had two aquarium air stones going to keep a hole in the ice. They were only sitting about 6" down near the edge of our large pond, while the fish hung out 3' down in the middle, so I don't think cooling was the cause. I did my normal fall clean of the pond prior to shutting it down for the winter. Muck out the bottom, clean the filters and do a 20% water change a couple times before turning it off.

Wish I could have learned something.

 

[Dave 54]

Dave, trickle lines would not work here. Exterior water pipes for our homes need to buried 2.4 meters/8 feet deep.
You could not plumb a pond for that.

.

Mitch I dont bury any lines just use a hose connected to my dechlorinator unit for the duration of the water change that takes around 4 hours , then everything i taken down the hose removed to the shed to prevent freezing and the same with the decholinator as such I dont trickle water 24/7 and do a weekly 30-40 % waterchange by twice draining the 32" vortex pre filter.
The rest of my filters are cleaned in late autumn and are heavily supplied with air throughout te winter snug in the insulated filter housing that is roofed by quad thickness policarbonate roofing .
OK so we dont get -40c infact no where near that but the outside air temperature still gets down to -15c ,
Under the policarbonate roofing covering the pond we record a constant temperature of roughly 7c the bottom drain aireator is closed to near a trickle of air only .
At -40c personally I would do as my Canadian friend Elaine does moves everything indoors until the spring , the result from constant koi losses to no koi losses and an indoor temperature she maintains at 11c .
When she had them outdoors we found that the koi's gills were all but fried by the intense cold and if they did survive the winter months they couldn't survive as the temperature rose to that of normal because only a small bit of gill remained with the rest destroyed by the cold , so you could say they suffercated.
Koi do not like long hard winters they come from a country that has short but sharp ones

Dave

 

[MitchM]

Right. I don't have that option.
If I was to place a hose with running water out to my pond, in a couple of hours I could organize a hockey game.

I no longer keep koi. Trying to catch them in a 9 meter X 10 meter pond would be fruitless.

.

 

[Dave 54]

We had a very mild winter (hit 0 for a week in Dec but other than that didn't get below 15 F). But I lost my two smallest koi and a yearling comet.

I am still confused about what may have occurred and don't know for sure. All tests of the water were fine. I had two aquarium air stones going to keep a hole in the ice. They were only sitting about 6" down near the edge of our large pond, while the fish hung out 3' down in the middle, so I don't think cooling was the cause. I did my normal fall clean of the pond prior to shutting it down for the winter. Muck out the bottom, clean the filters and do a 20% water change a couple times before turning it off.

Wish I could have learned something.

Pecan your two smallest koi my very well have died from sleeping sickness which normally only affects koi up to ywo years of age, they lay on the bottom to all intents and purposes dead if the pond is not the rapidly warmed they die.
We make sure that our pond is cleaned the bottom drain flushed through and all filters are cleaned just prior to winter we continue as I've said with water changes throughout the winter.
The result our koi are in their best optimum condition at the end of the winter and strong enough to aviod an areomonas infection .
They are then fed wheatgerm and garlic pellets until late spring , the garlic gives some protection against any parasites that may chance their luck,
In late spring our filters are stripped and cleaned the zeolite that was used in the winter is replaced by fully charge zeolite we add more crushed oyster shell new quilt batting and as each filter is cleaned over three weeks we dose each one as according to insructions with Microbe_lift PL filterpad innoculant , any that is left over is watered down and poured into the bio filter to give it a boost.
We clean them again in mid summer and then again as previously stated .
It works well for us
Our lowest recoded outside temperature this year was -15c

Dave

 

[mrsclem]

This was the first winter we left filters and pumps running and it was also the coldest. I'm still fixing leaks on stock tanks and barrel filters that froze. Back to just heaters next year.