Winter and pond maintenance

[Dave 54]

Remember folks just because its winter doesnt mean we can relax , water changes, maintenance, water Perameters have all got to be done on a weekly basis.
At or before 10c you will have stopped feeding your koi but they still produce ammonia for quite a while hence those water perameters
Popping out to check on our koi everyday will help too take a temperature reading and mark it down, at the end of winter it should give you your over all temperature average.thus allowing you to understand the mechanics of your winter, ready for the next one at the end of next year.
Remember to take the Air temperature at the same time once in the morning once at night these can then be put alongside your water temperatures to show how day and night time temperatures are affecting your water's temperature's rise and fall.
If you do this you can keep a weather eye on your koi remember if you know your koi and how to read their every move you can ge ahead of any problems that may be occuring to your koi.
Winter as you all know is a very dangerous time for your koi but it's amazing the number of people who stop doing everything in the winter then wonder why their koi die.
It doesnt take 10 minutes to take a peak we all have a very good idea on how our koi move and look anything out of the norm needs to be addressed quickly.
Please dont feed any lower than 10.c or 50.f even if the food says its ok at temperatures lower than 10.c.
Keep to your routines and you cant really go wrong can you ?
Remember around the 2-0c mark your koi are very near to death any lower and your koi go into what we call sleeping sickness at this stage if nothing is done , you will loose your koi.
You would need to start heating the pond to address this at about a degree a day but this is very rarely seen .

rgrds

Dave

 

[sissy]

I never do water changes in the winter I would not want to shock the fish with the water temp change .I feed mine spring and fall food ,but the weather here's average temps for winter are 40 degrees ,not saying we don't get colder we do but between those times we could get days in the 70 degree temps .The worst winter we had was 2010 .We get snow but it usually is gone with in a day or two .i also built my pond not to far from my septic tank and they give off lots of heat .I only ever lost one fish and he jumped out and my fault as i did not pull the net back on and i knew they were spawning and i have 2 koi that are over 2 feet long after a little over 8 years .I have 13 fish and i have seen babies and usually give them away .All my fish are around the same age .I even had a neighbor dog last year rip my liner and had to take all the fish out to replace the liner and not an easy task for one person and temps were around a 100 degrees that week and had to work night and day to get the fish back in as fast as i could .I did have a little water from the pond to put in the storage tank i was keeping them in .I really was lucky as not one fish was harmed by the shock of what i had to put them through .The old liner had lots of slits in it from the dog trying to get out of the pond so was really no good .So now always prepared for the worst but hope for the best .Remember temps play a big roll in your pond ,not just water but air temps also and even where you build your pond can play a big roll .

 

[callingcolleen1]

I have heard of people tell me that when it is very very cold, and if the water is moving way too much, and no "heater", the fish can "freeze to death", this must be "sleeping sickness". I shut half my pumps down during the winter and just circulate the three connecting ponds together and place a heater in the middle pond. Works good for me. I don't ever change water, just add, fish all good 20 years later. Of course not everybody can get away with this, if they have too many fish they should change water for sure, but I don't keep too many fish. There is only two big 15 inch koi in the top pond which is around 1200 gallons. The middle pond is about 1300 gallons and has seven koi, ranging from four to 10 inches, and about 5 large goldfish. The bottom pond is about 1000 gallons has about 60 or so small to medium goldfish and no koi. Then I have big floating plants that the fish love to swim under, must be warmer there ...

 

[Dave 54]

Sleeping sickness is rarely seen its when the temperature is around 2c in your pond or bellow .
Its recomended that when this happens you must raise the temperature by 2c daily up to 25c .
Trickling water at a very slow rate acctually warms the water going back into the pond I did this friday and only lost point 5 of a degree preping the pond with insulation covers etc can as shown bellow help hold the natural heat of the pond
Had our first taste of winter last night with a temperature of 2c outside due to winds blowing down from the Arctic brrrr
The weather station we have recorded as low as 2c a drop of 14c from yesterdays temperature of 16c her in the South West of the UK.
Thanx to the preping of the pond and filter housing prior to this we have a pond temperature of 14c this morning a drop of only 1c .
So it you see it does work.

rgrds

Dave