Michigan winter = alot of fish death

[alahoop]

Depends on the climate, but in NY we went thru many thaw/freeze periods. So I'd see stuff in the ice from time to time.

We usually have thawing throughout the winter, but not this year! It froze early and stayed that way.

Sorry to hear of your dead fish.

Large koi need clean running water all winter, so why does everybody put the filters away in the winter? Ice cold water does not always equate to crystal clean clear water, that is why I leave my underwater pumps and filters run all winter. Get a good pre pump underwater filter to keep the water fresh, that will be big enough to run all winter without clogging up. and enough of a current to keep with water fresh. Ice also melts away much quicker if the water is running all winter, and ice will not get as thick either.

Last but not least, get a good floating heater, I have a 1250 Watt that I used most of this year, and I switch to the 1500 watt floating cattle heater when below minus 30 or so degrees. Place the heater where the water moves well, so the water is evenly heated.

Keep a watchfull eye out all winter, ensure that the pond is moving and that there is lots of water below the ice.
That is my best advice and good luck in the future. I am sure you will figure out a way that will work good for you as you gain more experience too.

Our largest fish was about 6-7 inches long, and the four that survived were among the smallest, in the 2-3 inch range, so we are definitely not talking about large fish! Our filters are both above ground, and it is my understanding that leaving them running would lead to the water at the bottom of the pond becoming colder than the fish can handle. I did read that some people leave a pump running to circulate the water, but without having it hooked to a filter, but not until we were well into winter. I think we might try that next year.

We koi keepers are serious about our winters and keep our ponds ice free throughout the winter months by either using aninline heater that fits into your pipe work and at 1KW upwards depending on the heater we keep the pond ice free however this has one flaw, the cost of running your heater 24/7
Others like ourselves have heavily insulated our ponds against the cold and have built a filter housing again insulated against the cold, then to top that off we use Policarbonate rofing sheet's that cover the pond until spring.
The net result is the Pond never goes bellow 7c even during a cold spell of -15c ...now you mentioned decaying matter "this doesnt help your fish and can work agaist them by killing them .
So we all clean our ponds of dead leaves detritus etc prior to winter in late fall you must also give your filters a good clean too.
The result f this gives them a fighting chance of getting through the winter in one piece, another thing we koi keepers do throughout the winter is water changes , to do this we use a method called the trickle method via a dechlorination unit , the temperature of the pond helps warm the water as it trickles back into the pond , if done correctly you may not loose any heat or just .1c.
We again clean our filters in late spring and again in mid summer the net result of this is that all our koi come safely through the winter wih no harm which is important as spring can be a bitch what with the Areomonas bacteria and others attacking your fish they need to be as strong as possible to withstand these attacks and thus get through in one piece

Dave

It was not a ton of debris, but I know that any is bad for the fish. We always do a big cleaning of the pond in the fall, but it's situated under and near several trees, so keeping it clear after that is a bit of a battle. Our winter was so extreme this year that it froze earlier than normal, and never thawed, which didn't give us a chance to get out there for a final cleaning before it froze over.

Ours is not a koi pond, but a typical water garden pond with shelves for plants and no bottom drain, or anything like that. We don't have any pipe work that we could fit a heater to. I have heard of the trickle method before, but we don't have a dechlorinator unit, and I think that might be overkill on our pond, which is only around 1,000 gallons! It is under 3' deep, and so not really suitable for keeping koi.

I honestly never knew how much work went into having ponds like these. It's a live and learn thing, I guess. I have so much admiration for those of you with successful koi ponds, when we can't even keep our tiny goldfish alive! Right now, it seems like ours are all work, with very little enjoyment. I am sure that all of our work will eventually pay off and we will be able to enjoy them, but right now, yeesh. It's not something I'd have willingly undertaken. My husband does seem to enjoy them though.

 

[Waterbug]

This is where I want to bow out of a thread. Given enough discussion more and more dangerous suggestions just keep coming up. To new pond keeper they made sound great. But it's really hard to read this kind of thing unfold.

So my parting comment is about running a filter in winter...that's really dangerous. You would be dropping the temp to seriously dangerous levels, no question. A bubbler or heater keeping a small opening is dangerous enough, but maybe, depending on pond size, that would only drop the temp to 35F. But running a filter we're talking at least 100% turn over in the pond per hour...you're going to drop the temp even lower, maybe even below 32F depending on conditions. That is really asking fish to overcome a lot. We treat our fish pretty poorly in general but at some point this starts feeling more like abuse imo.

And for what purpose? What is being filtered/cleaned? Ammonia and nitrite converters are at or near 0% conversion rates at those temps. Plus ammonia production is way down. Plus ammonia will be mostly the non-toxic kind at those temps. So why force fish to live in dangerously cold water?

Beautiful thing about forums is free advice. Bad thing is it's worth every penny. Be careful what you believe. Good day.

 

[Dave 54]

Well I dont know if thats directed at callingcolleen or our good selves but I know my information is as sound as a pound as my mentor was non other than the head of the BKKS Health Standards Committee and I totally stick by my information.
It seems to me what works for one person doesnt necessarily work for another Callingcolleen's methods she has succeeded with in Canada at horrenous temperatures, where my Canadian friend couldnt keep her koi alive at -24c with a windchill of -54c so as such shouldnt work but do for her , but seem's too.
I've had less years in ponds but have the 27 years experiance behind me to know what we are doing is correct and by the teachings of a well repected friend and mentor and I do know the koi we kept at 22c year round until going outdoors and being dropped into a prolonged cold spell of -10c are all alive and well with us 5 years later after a prolonged spell at -15c this year.
Our filters stay on and the insulation and Policarbonate roofing sheets keep our pond at 7c at its lowest. but more importantly they are ice freeso no build up of toxic gasses nor is there any debris to rot down and cause any.
The only thing we ever turn down is our spindrifter or as you guys call them bubblers we do not turn down the aistones to the filter bays all twelve of them...
Peter Waddingtons advice to all koi keepers is to use an inline pond heater because as he calls koi as being sub tropical an is the reason the Japanese breeders bring their koi under cover in the winter yet Calling colleen's methods fly in the face of that advice and work for her.
I stand by my own information as I know it is true and works .....ponds and filters have to be prepped for the winter and then again in spring readying them for the summer "but also and of vital importance it helps us avoid what we call the Areomonas ally", they are cleaned again by mid summer.
We never see the dreaded string algea that alott of ponds seem to suffer from which is a big plus also

Dave

 

[Peterpuck]

I am new here, and also from Michigan. We lost most of our fish over the winter. Four of our smaller goldfish survived (though the difference in size is only an inch or two), and we lost about 12 fish. We keep an airstone running through the winter, and have only been doing this for a few years, but haven't lost any fish during previous winters. A neighbor who keeps koi told me he lost all but one of his (not sure of his pond size, so overstocking may have been an issue there. It definitely wasn't in ours though).

It was exceptionally cold here last winter, but I know that people in colder climates keep fish, so I have been wondering what the difference is. Our pond is just under 3" deep at its deepest.

My husband works with a man who said that his in-laws live on a small lake, and they saw tons of dead bluegill when they visited. His father-in-law said it was the worst he'd ever seen it, so it wasn't just an issue for those of us with smaller ponds.

I'm in Sterling Heights, Mi. and I was pleasantly surprised that despite the cold/snowy winter I only lost 2 koi (out of 15) and no goldfish(out of 18) in our modest 750 gallon pond. Granted most of the koi were still small, (mostly 4-6 inches) as they were only added last July. The two koi that didn't make were the two largest (about 8-10 inches). This past winter was the first time that I kept the pump and waterfall running thru the entire winter and maybe that helped? I did have a few days when the aireation lines froze up and I had to install a makeshift backup line to keep air in the water but the fish seemed to do alright even though my fish population is way overcrowded by most pond standards. The surviving Koi have been growing at an alarming rate this summer and at least five of them are already over a foot long! This is my first attempt at koi so I am probably set up for an epidemic next spring but so far, they have been doing well despite the crowding. Prior to last summer, I had only gold fish in the pond and I never lost ANY over the winters from 2009 thru 2013 despite the fact that the fish population grew from 20 to 65 fish over that time period (all of the goldfish were at least 6 inches long and most of them were 8-10 inches long). The Heron came for lunch regularly every memorial day but was thwarted when I put netting over the pond. I added the koi last year to get more variety into the population. Most of the 65 gold fish died late in the spring of 2013 because there was too much decaying debris in the bottom of the pond from 2012 (I couldn't get the water to clear up until I drained the entire pond down to the liner!) BTW- my pond is only 30 inches deep at the deepest point and is about 18 inches deep on average. I used to bring the goldfish in for the winter before I enlarged (and deepened) the pond but the fish had a 30% mortality rate when I would bring them in & out. I think they were overcrowded in the two 30 gallon aquariums in the house after they grew up in the 150 gallon pond all summer.
There is one other point regarding the cold weather deaths. I lost 3 fish in late fall because of the extreme rapid temperature fluctuations. Koi can only take a 3 degree temperature change in 1 hour. If the air temp drops 30 degrees overnight, a smaller pond (like mine) can experience too rapid of a temperature drop for fish that might be a little stressed.

 

[dieselplower]

Well I disagree with a good bit of the information in the post above but hey WELCOME TO THE FORUM lol.

 

[max384]

I'm in Sterling Heights, Mi. and I was pleasantly surprised that despite the cold/snowy winter I only lost 2 koi (out of 15) and no goldfish(out of 18) in our modest 750 gallon pond. Granted most of the koi were still small, (mostly 4-6 inches) as they were only added last July. The two koi that didn't make were the two largest (about 8-10 inches). This past winter was the first time that I kept the pump and waterfall running thru the entire winter and maybe that helped? I did have a few days when the aireation lines froze up and I had to install a makeshift backup line to keep air in the water but the fish seemed to do alright even though my fish population is way overcrowded by most pond standards. The surviving Koi have been growing at an alarming rate this summer and at least five of them are already over a foot long! This is my first attempt at koi so I am probably set up for an epidemic next spring but so far, they have been doing well despite the crowding. Prior to last summer, I had only gold fish in the pond and I never lost ANY over the winters from 2009 thru 2013 despite the fact that the fish population grew from 20 to 65 fish over that time period (all of the goldfish were at least 6 inches long and most of them were 8-10 inches long). The Heron came for lunch regularly every memorial day but was thwarted when I put netting over the pond. I added the koi last year to get more variety into the population. Most of the 65 gold fish died late in the spring of 2013 because there was too much decaying debris in the bottom of the pond from 2012 (I couldn't get the water to clear up until I drained the entire pond down to the liner!) BTW- my pond is only 30 inches deep at the deepest point and is about 18 inches deep on average. I used to bring the goldfish in for the winter before I enlarged (and deepened) the pond but the fish had a 30% mortality rate when I would bring them in & out. I think they were overcrowded in the two 30 gallon aquariums in the house after they grew up in the 150 gallon pond all summer.
There is one other point regarding the cold weather deaths. I lost 3 fish in late fall because of the extreme rapid temperature fluctuations. Koi can only take a 3 degree temperature change in 1 hour. If the air temp drops 30 degrees overnight, a smaller pond (like mine) can experience too rapid of a temperature drop for fish that might be a little stressed.

Is your pond 150 or 750 gallons?