|
|
Post by featherduster on Mar 12, 2011 7:56:15 GMT -5
Yesterday was the first halfway decent day to get outdoors and my worst fears were confirmed when I looked at my catfish pond.
About 8 years ago I dug a pond about the size of a 4 car garage and about 10' deep, I stocked it with only channel cats.
Over the years we fed them dog food and hot dogs and enjoyed catching these cats that last year were weighing up wards of 6-8 lbs.
This was a very rough winter with lots of thick ice and very deep snow that caused a kill off of my fish.
This is a sad thing to see, I can only hope a few may have survived.
|
|
|
|
Post by hornharvester on Mar 12, 2011 10:28:50 GMT -5
Shallow ponds benefit greatly from shoveling snow off the ice. This allows sunshine to go deeper and helps weeds put off oxygen or if possible run an electric line to power an air pump. Sorry you lost so many of your fish. h.h.
|
|
|
|
Post by Genesis 27:3 on Mar 12, 2011 11:12:43 GMT -5
sorry to hear about that
|
|
|
|
Post by kevin1 on Mar 12, 2011 11:16:20 GMT -5
Shallow ponds benefit greatly from shoveling snow off the ice. This allows sunshine to go deeper and helps weeds put off oxygen or if possible run an electric line to power an air pump. Sorry you lost so many of your fish. h.h. A stock tank deicer located at the pond's center probably would've helped too, besides keeping a small area warmer for the fish it would've prevented the pond from completely icing over. The opening would allow gas exchange, and the convection current it generated would help distribute the oxygen. |
|
|
|
Post by duff on Mar 12, 2011 19:43:06 GMT -5
Not really. Shoveling the snow off would be better than a small hole. The gas exchange isn't from the air above to the water below. It is all about the gas generated from photosynthesis of aquatic plants. The stock heater probably wouldn't keep a large enough hole open to make a difference but knowing where featherduster is I am sure he doesn't want to shovel the pond either! My mother in law has a 1 acre pond with an aerator set up. It keeps a big section open except in the very coldedst of cold snaps where it chokes down pretty tight. If you are concerned about the ice I'd suggest looking into an aerator set up.
If you do this be very carefull when installing the system as if you turn it on in the wrong time of the year you will kill all your fish in a hurry.
Catfish are pretty resilant to low dissolved oxygen I am sure you have had a few survive. I assume you haven't had any reproduction in your pond. If that is true I'd just restock with some 4-6" cats. Sounds like a great place to relax and let the kids catch some fun fish! Good luck.
|
|
|
|
Post by featherduster on Mar 12, 2011 21:36:17 GMT -5
I have had reproduction every year,the dead fish very in size from 2 inches to 2 feet.
The pond is a hole about 3' lower than ground level and it sits in a low spot with no electric for about a 1/4 mile so electric and air power are out of the question.
There is still some ice yet to thaw and then I will begin the clean up.
Duff:you are correct about the gas generated from the decaying plant life and that was caused by the snow and ice blocking out the sun light for to long a period of time.
I hope you are right about survivors and if not I will restock this summer.
My plans to prevent this from happening again is to use a 3" trash pump to pump water from a bigger pond about 70 yards away onto the surface of the catfish pond to help aerate.
This was the first time and hopefully the last time this will happen.
|
|
|
|
Post by danf on Mar 12, 2011 22:07:51 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by throbak on Mar 13, 2011 7:29:03 GMT -5
tilapia pond
|
|
|
|
Post by tjmurf on Mar 13, 2011 8:12:29 GMT -5
Our fish kill was last year. All my catfish 1 foot and up died. We were some what lucky that the larger fish population was low last winter. The pond was 8 years old. The ice just cleared off the pond this last week and I have found no dead fish yet. A neighbor had just stocked his new pond last spring, feed them heavy with fish food. That cats went from 4 to 6 inch when stocked to 14 inch. 3 weeks ago when his ice cleared we found them all dead. Neither off us have an aeration system yet. This years project is to build my own. My pond is only a 1/4 acer in size and I can not justify the cost of a factory built unit. I recently found a guy that has a home built unit using a smog pump from a 70s automobile. He said it is been in use for several years now and is working great. I am planing on trying this and will post the results later this year in detail.
|
|
|
|
Post by raporter on Mar 13, 2011 8:17:10 GMT -5
Our fish kill was last year. All my catfish 1 foot and up died. We were some what lucky that the larger fish population was low last winter. The pond was 8 years old. The ice just cleared off the pond this last week and I have found no dead fish yet. A neighbor had just stocked his new pond last spring, feed them heavy with fish food. That cats went from 4 to 6 inch when stocked to 14 inch. 3 weeks ago when his ice cleared we found them all dead. Neither off us have an aeration system yet. This years project is to build my own. My pond is only a 1/4 acer in size and I can not justify the cost of a factory built unit. I recently found a guy that has a home built unit using a smog pump from a 70s automobile. He said it is been in use for several years now and is working great. I am planing on trying this and will post the results later this year in detail. Got any plans for this? |
|
|
|
Post by tjmurf on Mar 13, 2011 8:27:14 GMT -5
Our fish kill was last year. All my catfish 1 foot and up died. We were some what lucky that the larger fish population was low last winter. The pond was 8 years old. The ice just cleared off the pond this last week and I have found no dead fish yet. A neighbor had just stocked his new pond last spring, feed them heavy with fish food. That cats went from 4 to 6 inch when stocked to 14 inch. 3 weeks ago when his ice cleared we found them all dead. Neither off us have an aeration system yet. This years project is to build my own. My pond is only a 1/4 acer in size and I can not justify the cost of a factory built unit. I recently found a guy that has a home built unit using a smog pump from a 70s automobile. He said it is been in use for several years now and is working great. I am planing on trying this and will post the results later this year in detail. Got any plans for this? Just in my head for now. I had just received this information this last week. I am familiar with these air pumps. In a pond 1 acre or less they should be perfect. I want it running by early summer and I will have plans on paper by then. |
|
|
|
Post by esshup on Mar 13, 2011 9:00:13 GMT -5
While expensive, the windmill will work for ya. A buddy has 2 of them for his ponds and is pushing air 900' to one of his ponds. If you do decide to aerate, you need to decide if you'll aerate just in the winter or all year 'round. If aerating in the winter, you'll need to put the diffuser at roughly 1/3 to 1/4 of the max. depth of the pond. That way you won't supercool the whole pond. If you want to aerate all year long, 2 diffusers or move the one diffuser in the Spring and Fall. Personally, I prefer the membrane diffusers, made for ponds and not for waste water treatment plants. The membrane diffisers (such as Vertex) are pretty much self-cleaning, but could use a brushing off once a year. The air stone type diffusers need to be soaked in muratic acid to clean them. Use self-weighted air line, which lays on the bottom of the pond. More expensive, but worth it in my book. For all things ponds, give a look at www.pondboss.com and hit the forum. There's a bunch of good people there. |
|
|
|
Post by duff on Mar 13, 2011 9:30:06 GMT -5
You guys that feed your fish need to make sure you don't over feed. The extra nutrients from the food will cause you problems to which will result in a fish kill under the right conditions. The best is to have a self sustaining fish population but I know it is hard to not go down and throw food out to see your fish. Just limit it as much as possible or eliminate it all togher.
|
|
|
|
Post by tjmurf on Mar 13, 2011 15:12:00 GMT -5
While expensive, the windmill will work for ya. A buddy has 2 of them for his ponds and is pushing air 900' to one of his ponds. If you do decide to aerate, you need to decide if you'll aerate just in the winter or all year 'round. If aerating in the winter, you'll need to put the diffuser at roughly 1/3 to 1/4 of the max. depth of the pond. That way you won't supercool the whole pond. If you want to aerate all year long, 2 diffusers or move the one diffuser in the Spring and Fall. Personally, I prefer the membrane diffusers, made for ponds and not for waste water treatment plants. The membrane diffisers (such as Vertex) are pretty much self-cleaning, but could use a brushing off once a year. The air stone type diffusers need to be soaked in muratic acid to clean them. Use self-weighted air line, which lays on the bottom of the pond. More expensive, but worth it in my book. For all things ponds, give a look at www.pondboss.com and hit the forum. There's a bunch of good people there. I have done a lot of research on the different system and their cost. Living in a wooded area has its draw backs using a windmill. My pond is only a 1/4 acre and in a low area where I get very little air flow and the rest of the property is heavily wooded. The expense of a windmill system for my location just would not be worth it. The pond is about 200 ft from my house and am considering putting the pump in my basement to stop the supercooling affect. |
|
|
|
Post by tjmurf on Mar 13, 2011 15:28:51 GMT -5
You guys that feed your fish need to make sure you don't over feed. The extra nutrients from the food will cause you problems to which will result in a fish kill under the right conditions. The best is to have a self sustaining fish population but I know it is hard to not go down and throw food out to see your fish. Just limit it as much as possible or eliminate it all togher. I made a floating fish feeding cage that only small fish the size of medium bluegill can enter and feed. This gets them a good start then once they reach a certain size they are on there own. |
|
|
|
Post by esshup on Mar 14, 2011 8:26:58 GMT -5
I have done a lot of research on the different system and their cost. Living in a wooded area has its draw backs using a windmill. My pond is only a 1/4 acre and in a low area where I get very little air flow and the rest of the property is heavily wooded. The expense of a windmill system for my location just would not be worth it. The pond is about 200 ft from my house and am considering putting the pump in my basement to stop the supercooling affect. The electric compressor will do it for you then. It's not the air that's pumped into the pond that does the cooling, it's the water that is pulled upward by the bubbles and mixed with the upper, colder water during the winter that does the supercooling. If the air compressor is inside during the winter, make sure that there are no dips or low spots in the air line on its way to the pond. The line itself will act as a condenser and water vapor will turn to water droplets in the line, possibly freezing and plugging the line. I put rainbow trout in the pond 2 years ago in Oct. and tried to over-summer them, only turning on the aerator in the deepest part of the pond during the evenings when the ambient temps were below 70°F. Didn't work, the cooler water on the bottom of the pond mixed with the upper, warmer water and they all died by the end of June. While I had enough DO down low (in the 9 mg/l range), the water temp was 72° when the last one died. duff, you are 100% correct. Overfeeding is a no-no! I've got an automatic directional feeder that I can adjust the run time. I only feed what the fish can consume in 15 minutes. I'll turn it on once the water temp hits 60°, feeding about 1/2 hr after sunrise and an hour before sunset. I feed a mixture of Purina AquaMax 500 and 600. A buddy has some feed trained Largemouth Bass, and I'm going to remove some non feed trained LMB from my pond and replace them with his. Here's one of 4 "Shamu's" that I have swimming around in the pond:  29.5" and 15.94# I tagged it and released it. |
|
