Hi folks I'm having a few deaths in the pond, Lost 2 small goldfish thought that it maybe the winter taking it's toll, Then I lost another today 1 of the large comets had him for some time now :( When I took him out of the pond I found small off white blobs they looked quite gritty about 1-2 mil in size in a dome shape on the tail and beside the gills about 5 in total could this be white spot (Ichthyophthirius) or something else as I read that it could not survive in water temperatures below 75f and it's well below 75f more around 35-40 any advice on what it could be thanks folks :D

Sorry about your fish. I am sure Robyn will beable to give you some insite.

OOOh that is sad :-( Sorry to hear about your fishy's. Robyn will be able to help you out. She should be on here soon! Good luck and I really hope you can get it under control! KK

I'm sorry about your fish. It's highly unlikely that it would be ick when the temperatures are below 50 degrees F (well really below 60 degrees F). Ick is hibernating on the bottom of the pond in the winter if it's there at all. Can you get photos of the spots on the fish? Photos really help diagnosis. I don't want to feel like I'm just guessing. Small blobs (really tiny, a few mm) could be small cysts, perhaps small parasites (although not likely when it's cold), or little areas infected with bacteria or fungus (which doesn't have to be fuzzy but normally is). Sometimes goldfish get little granules which are little white cysts, normally only a few here and there. I'm not sure what causes those but they're normally harmless. Since your fish have died, the spots you're seeing may or may not have to do with it. How big is your pond? Does it have ice over it? Does the pond have any moving water or aeration going now?

My section on "What's that lump on my fish?"
http://www.fishpondinfo.com/health4.htm#lump

Good luck!

The pond size is about 4500 litres, The only movement is caused by the waterfall as far as aeration goes only the waterfall and the plants, Haven't had much frost this year only frozen about a week in total, I disposed of the fish so can't take photo's :blink: and all the other fish are on the bottom or hiding in the plants, If I disturb them by lifting them out will it do them harm or should I wait till spring and hope for the best. Some of the photo's I've been looking at seem to point more to cysts rather than ick or some sort of fungus.

If no more fish are dying now, I wouldn't bother the fish hiding on the bottom during the winter. I think the white things are more likely cysts as I mentioned during the winter. Cysts aren't fatal so there is probably some other reason the fish died. Low oxygen levels are pretty common in the winter but, if your pond did not freeze over and had aeration, that's not as likely.

Do you think that the plants and the waterfall are enough as far as the aeration goes or should i be looking at putting an air pump into the pond, I've never had a problem with the fish gasping at the surface or any other oxygen problem before and have quite a few oxygenating plants in there to support 10 fish. Thanks for the advice

What size pump do you have running the waterfall? If it's over 1000 gph, it should be plenty. I have an air stone in my 153 gallon pond because that pump and filter are off for the winter but in my 1800 gallon pond, I have just the waterfall going and no extra aeration. The so-called oxygenating plants do produce oxygen during the day but only during the growing season. During that time, they actually use up oxygen at night so aeration is important even with those plants, in fact moreso if there are lot of them. In the winter, they are dormant and don't do much, just fall to the bottom and sometimes get mushy.