The warm wind blew all night the night before last and opened about a 2'x3' hole in the ice around the heater so I was able to get a good look at some fish. They congregate under the allied when it warms up a bit. One of them didn't look so good, nose poked into the rocks and a few minutes later laying on his side on the rocks so I grabbed a bucket, bypassed the fish net, and thought I'd just pick him up ............right..........got him in the bucket twice, picked him up and dropped him on the plywood heater cover, swished him into the bucket twice more then decided I should have used the net, which I went to get and he headed for safer water! I checked three or four more times yesterday and he's nowhere to be seen, but of course, there's too much ice cover to get a good look. I'm trying to sweep the snow and slush off the ice to get a bigger hole melted, but we'll have to see what mother nature brings today. If he dies, what will happen? Will he float up to the ice or ????? I'm sure whatever happens it'll be YUCKY!

On the bright side, I did manage to get a look at Oscar, the big Koi, and Mr. White, the little Koi and even caught a glimpse of my middle Koi, Spy. Best of all, I saw our baby, I hadn't seen him since about mid-September and thought somebody must have eaten him.........he looks like he might have grown a bit too, I bet he's on the big side of an inch long!

Hi SS,
I know what you mean about the snow finally melting enough to get a peek at whats going on. Same thing happened here a couple weeks ago. For one day only it was really warm and the snow and ice melted and I could actually see a couple of my boys out for a spring cruise!! Hadn't seen them for months so it was nice.
Hopefully the "sick" one was still just acting slow because of the cold? If not and the worst happens there isn't much you can do about it other than get the body out as soon as enough ice and snow have melted to do so. It should do much harm as long as the water stays cold. You wouldn't want it in there come warm weather though.

And yeah, it will probably be gross!

I'll keep my fingers crossed for the both of us, and with luck in a few weeks we can actually start seeing whats going on in there!

Derrick

Jeez, no fair! I think I am the only one that hasn't seen hide nor hair of a fish since October :-(

hahaha...I know, that one little peek (even though I couldn't get to the pond because there is too much snow) was just enough to get the interest going again! LOL :D

Sharon, hopefully that fish will be ok. I've had fish that were listing that recovered. If he/she does die, in my experience, the body sinks. It may later float if left in there long enough to decompose which produces gases as by-products.

This one's for you Elaine.........if you can't peek at yours at least you can peek at mine! If you look close that dark orange spot beside the cord for the allied at the far left about halfway up is the BABY (the light orange spot is a leaf).

I think I was hoping more for the body to float........before it gets gross!

Sorry Sharon, I couldn't help it, I peeked at yours too! :D :D :o

SS maybe, hopefully, it was just cold but if not it is cold enough that it wont get to nasty. I had one die in the hot summer it sank I had to go looking for it (when you have 5 fish you know when one is missing) and she was at the bottom and not gross at all she was down there for 3 or 4 days before I found her poor baby :(

I hope all ends well for ya that is a hard blow. i love your pond and all your babies look happy :D

C2

Thanks SS! I hardly remembered what fish look like, LOL. We are having another gorgeous day. My stupid thermo pond heater sank yesterday ( I think Derrick's sinking jinxed mine!) So I had to take it out and drill a hole in it to get the water out, filled the hole with silicone and will put it back out tonight and hope it still works. It is so nice and mild right now that ice didn't even form over the opening last night without the heater. It feels like Spring, but I know better. It is warm in the pond tent and I keep hoping I will see some movement soon. I am still trying to get my pond thermometer out of the ice so I can check the pond water temp. Maybe today!

Sure, blame me! ;)
It was really mild here today as well. We had a few inches of snow last night, then it rained the rest of the night. Very foggy today. On a bright note it ate away a couple feel of snow! woohoo! I can ALMOST tell where my pond is now. Follow the kitty kat tracks.....



TADA! :D

I thought I saw a puddy tat!

Oh no, did the puddy tat fall in?? :o :blink:
tia

Next few days I'll be looking at one less fishy..probably. :( Went down to the pond this morning and one of my 'shadows' ( top is black,bottom is gold ) was stuck to the pump. A leaf was between him and the pump but his side looked like it had a 'love handle' from one pump vent. After holding and swooshing him, he swam away to the deep end. Now it's just a wait and see. I have been lucky when it's cold, they seem to be able to handle the shock better. :rolleyes: The summer suckers never survived. :(

Went to the pond this morning...no sign of Shadow, the gold and black I took off the pump yesterday. :D Unfortunately, I did find a white and gold on the bottom. He's been in there for awhile, no fins at all. :(

Hopefully that will be the extent of the casualties you discover. :huh:

Derrick

Geez, I'm going to stop looking in the winter. Yesterday the orange and white from the picture (but there's 2 like that so I'm not sure) came over to the open hole and looked like he was 'puffing' and swam hard to reach the surface took a bite at the edge of the ice and then drifted down a bit, swam really hard to the top and took a big gulp of air and then sank down to the rocks on his side. By the time I went to get the net he was gone. I don't have an aerator, but I think I'll hook the hose to the 'blow' side of the shop vac and blow some air under the ice and see what happens...........what do you think?

That might work. Just make sure that your shopvac doesn't have any motor oil in the hose [like ours does]. I wouldn't think it would hurt anything but might blow the h^ll out of the water so wear a raincoat :)
You really should have an aerator though as you probably already know. I bought one this year and it works really well. Didn't cost that much and KK has also used the same one too.
tia

Another thought.. If you have an aquarium you could take that one out and use, if you aren't using it in the aquarium that is..

I don't have an aerator either. DH has this thing about running water year round so I run a small pump with the tube just breaking the surface. I wedged the outflow tube under some rocks so the flow is over the pump but like yesterday I still have to keep an eye on curious fish. And also the flow is aimed at the de-icer so I've been pretty lucky at overflow this winter. As an emergency measure I guess the vac would work, do you have a small pump you can drop in?

I am very sorry to hear about everyone's fishy problems and losses :( This makes me really nervous, not being able to see mine. I hope I don't have a massive fishy graveyard going on down there. This is really getting to me, like am I being naive to think that every one of my fish will survive? It has already been 4 months since I have seen a fish. I guess I am past the worst of the winter. I just don't know how I would deal with a big loss. We put our old cat down in December and our old Lab just went to the big farm in the sky last week and I just picked up her ashes 2 days ago :( I am getting tired of all this pet loss, but I guess that is part of life.

I took a look today, Shadow seems to be swimming with everybody else just fine. KK, sorry about your losses.

Thanks Sadie!

KK, I'm sorry about your cat and dog. I've had many animals and lost many including a cat (15 to 20 years old, don't know for sure) last year and my almost 15-year-old lizard a few weeks ago. We bury most of ours but, our last dog who died three years ago, we had to have him cremated because the ground was super frozen. I guess your ground is almost always super frozen. I too am very tired of having animals die way too soon.

Thanks, Sadie......I forgot all about the bubbler I used to have in the Betta Bowl! I can't believe how much ice that little thing gets rid of. Sure it probably only got to -15 overnight but it melted a 3' hole in the ice, about the same size as the Allied's hole. I haven't seen the sick fancy tail, but I did see it's partner (the partner's colors are stronger now). The bubbler has been going for about 24 hours so if it's an oxygen problem it's hopefully on the way to getting better. I can't stop looking, I have to stop looking!

KK - ashes day is SOOO hard......just when you think you're starting to recover from the loss it comes back and punches you 'scamper' was my almost 15 year old cat that we lost last June, he was diabetic on insulin twice a day for 4 years, boy do I know what a hole it leaves in your heart when they're gone! Sending you a big WARM Alberta hug!

Sharon, I too had a diabetic cat named Tootsy. He died in 2000 but was on insulin twice a day for three years. We made so many trips to the regular and emergency vets when his blood sugar was either way too high or way too low. Tootsy was 18 years old. His page is at http://www.fishpondinfo.com/cats/tootsy.htm

Tootsy's page is great Robyn! It never fails to amaze me how many people have actually had diabetic felines. I never listened to my vet when he told me I didn't need to check Scamp's blood sugar at home (thanks to felinediabetes.com)and we bypassed all the emergency vet visits. His food allergies caused us to put him on steroids for the last six or seven months of his life and that put a huge strain on his already compromised kidneys and they finally gave up on the poor baby.

I just got back from my parents house. They asked me if I could take their old dog to be put down this week. I am like are you kidding ME!!! I love that dog more than my own dogs! Oh Crap, from now on I think we should make sure that we space all our animals out by a couple of years so all the losses don't come at once. I told them two weeks ago that we should take the dogs to "go" at the same time. Now I sit here feeling so sad I have to go through this AGAIN! 2 dogs, a cat and a cheating husband is TOO MUCH all at once, LOL!

Good news, though...............the pond is starting to melt :-)

It's good your pond is starting to melt. What is wrong with your parents' dog? I feel too many have their pets "put down" simply because they're old or require extra care. We've never once done that. I've had animals live years past when the vet suggested we end their lives due to things like cancer, diabetes, kidney failure, immobility, etc.

That is probably true Robyn, but knowing KK I doubt that is the case here.

Derrick

My god, Elaine, don't you just want to tell the world to stop, you want to get off now!

Congrats on the ice melt, though! Is it really melting all the way through, or just down to a couple feet thick?!

Gosh KK, isn't that asking a lot of you right now? Sometimes it can't be helped but gee whiz you have been through a bunch here in the last few weeks! I suppose when it really is time, it's time. :'(
I feel for ya..

Tia

Hi everyone! I have been trying to get back on here more but things keep dragging me down! You guys are all so great though :-) Mom and Dad's dog is still hanging in there but she really is in bad need of going to the big farm in the sky. And YES!!! The ice is still melting it is only about 14 inches thick right now and the hole is staying open with just the aerator and the hole is getting bigger on it's own. SO COOL to see Spring finally making its way here. I think the tent over the pond is helping the pond as it is kind of having a greenhouse effect whent the sun hits it. Our days are getting so much longer and it won't belong now until we get our 21 hours of daylight...YIPEEE I love that!

The big warm wind has been blowing and ALL my ice is gone as of yesterday! The little-ish guy is still swimming, although he does have a little damage on his side, thanks to me for trying to catch him. The bigger fancy tailed one is acting strange, I saw her laying in the rocks and had to look for a long time to see her mouth move and five minutes later she's swimming like a mad banshee for a couple of laps around the pond. She's still a little pale, but at least she's moving!

My neighbors are again convinced that I've lost my mind...........I'm out moving the air stone around the edges to melt the ice around the rocks, until mother nature gave me a hand. The skimmer box was a huge block of ice until I put the air stone in there for a couple hours til I could get the block out and threw it up in the stream bed where it melted and dripped down into the pond melting that part of the pond. My only hold out to getting the pump back in is the waterfall box. We have been filling it with buckets of hot water and it melted enough to get the filters out (note to self-fall is the time to take the filter media INSIDE!) The hose that goes to the pump is still frozen, so I came home from work early yesterday and hooked the hose up to the hot water side of the clothes washer connection and stuck the nozzle in the waterfall box outlet, unfortunately it takes a 90 degree bend right away so I can't get the hose very far in. Filling the waterfall box with hot water and leaving it sit doesn't do much........I see more bubbles coming out if I leave the hose running but I ran BOTH of my 30 gal. hot water tanks dry without result yesterday. The fish seemed to like to congregate around the end of the stream when I quit though, I didn't think there was that much hot water dripping out of the stream, but it must have been enough for them to feel the difference!

I think I'll wait til the neighbors go to work to try it again today. There is quite a cloud of steam comes off the waterfall box so it's not like I can pretend I'm doing something else!

Hi SS Hope your fish are Ok after the spring thaw. I don't know much about the size of you pond or if you are adding water from a well but I think your fish and other pond life would benifit if each spring, you clean out the muck on the bottom of your pond and do awater change of 20 % if possible. I have had much better success preventing earily spring losses after someone advised me of this. What zone are you in?

FM3

Sharon, is there a specific reason you are so anxious to get your filtration going again? Most people just wait for it to melt naturally.

I think maybe Sharon is like me and we just WANT SPRING!!!!! So.....we think if WE help it along that it will get here faster, LOL, LOL. I know I am moving towards Spring because over the last week, the spring has started to run into my clay pond and there is about 8 feet of water in there already!! I have resigned myself to NOT going down there until it is 14 feet deep and running out the other end. I am HOPING I don't see the 3,000+ little fishy bodies that I KNOW are in there. I checked a couple weeks ago and it was indeed frozen right down to the bottom :-( :-( :-( :-(

KK I hope your fishes are OK in your big pond! I have been wondering just what do you have swimming in that pond? Frogs too hopefully ;)

Froggy

KK, 21 hours of daylight??!!! You sound more like you're in Alaska or just a permanent 3rd shifter. :D Years ago when I worked 10:30pm to 7am there were times I went in when it was light and came out when it was light on an 8 hour shift. lol I only saw total darkness on the weekend. :ph43r:
My skippy filter is half melted inside...I broke the ice to get the dead frog out but other than that, it's on it's own.

OH YA 21 hours of daylight is VERY COOL!!!!!! Before winter hit I had 3000+ baby goldfish in the big pond but it froze solid so I don't think there will be survivors. We have lots of big Toads down there and they have lots of babies too. The mud is very thick so maybe they could burrough in there??? I have a moral dilema about putting more fish in there this year incase the water level drops too much again and they don't make it :-(

I'm just REALLY anxious for spring, Robyn and the pond is yucky green, and I thought the two sickos would heal up a little better with some cleaner water around. I don't think the 60 gallons of hot water I added really qualifies as a water change - about 2%. I'm not really sure how I'd go about changing 20%.
The larger of the two sickos seems a lot better today, her color is still a bit pale but she's swimming with the rest more often than she was. As it seems like I'm going to be forced to wait, I guess I'll just have to be happy scrubbing the streambed down and picking scummy leaves that I can reach. I suggested to DH that we have a big bonfire in the middle of the lawn over the frozen hose and the silly boy thought I was joking!

I'm in zone 3, Froggy, on city water and the bottom of the pond is about 4 1/2 feet deep...........I ain't getting in there until about July!

If your streambed mixes into the pond with the 'sickos', I wouldn't scrub anything down until the filters are working. You may not see much, but the water quality might be a drastic drop.