Well I am an hour into pumping the pond and thought I would start a thread about what I see and my progress. The tent is off and put away. I scooped my one survivor out and put him in an 180gallon stock tank for now. The water is pumped down to 5 feet and still no sign of any fish. The water temp is 46F. Will post more in a bit.

Well the water is pumped down to 3 feet and still no sign of anything :-( Good news is, as I have been sitting there for the last 3 hours, I have come up with a whole new idea of what I will do if I don't have any survivors. I am trying to get myself pumped up about the new idea in order to offset the grief I might be dealing with in another hour or so :-(. If I do only have a couple survivors I will put them out in the clay pond and go ahead with the new plans. You can't imagine what I am going through with all this waiting and not knowing. I have come inside to write this update and make myself a nice gin and tonic! If you can believe it, it is 78F right now! Almost time for the pondkini :P Too bad we are only in for one nice day!

I hope your fishies make it!

Down to just under two feet now. It's so green can't see anything. Did however see a very large orange shadow, which could only be one of the big koi....YIPEE. Saw two tiny babies also, but so far that is it. Things are looking more positive now with the koi (probably) sighting. Hope to be filling it up with water by 6pm. Guess this will be an all night project :( Will post again soon.

Hope they do well...and hope you dont kill yourself working! My pond isnt green but cloudy still from yesterdays stir up![I pulled the plants out and stirred up whatever was on\in them...I have an airpump running and a water spitting fish keeping the water well areated...this is my first REAL pond and I love it...Im also looking into getting a few more ponds.]

YIPPPPEEEEE!!!! Got 100% confirmation of three of my big koi. Still haven't seen anyone else, but I am super duper happy :-) They are HUGE and from what I can see they look healthy. It must be a shock for them to have been woken up like this!

Yaaahooo! Yippeeeee!!!! I'm bustin' some moves! B)
It's sounding pretty darn good! See you do have fish down there in the deep dark lagoon ;)
Go KK, go KK, go KK!!!!!!!!!!! B) B)

Yup I do! Just got confirmation on my big breeding pair of goldies, they are about 8-10 inches and a handful of other goldies as well. That was good enough for me! I pumped down to about 1 1/2 feet and now I am pumping it back in with water from the clay pond so I don't have to worry about dechlorinator. I figured if I saw the biggest ones and the smallest ones then the in between ones are probably fine as well. No sign of any bodies???? I will post some pictures tonight once I come in. I am pumping the water 200 feet so it is going to take some time. Hopefully the new sump pump I bought will do the job without dying! K well gotta run and watch the progress! I bet I will be up till after midnight with the fill.

Have fun!

I'm so glad your fish are down there! How many fish did you put in there in the fall? Since you're replacing the water with water from the clay pond, is that technically a water change or just a change of water? I hope the water is similar in temperature and water chemistry so it doesn't bother them. I thought while you had the pond all pumped out, you were going to remove the fish. What do you plan to do now that you know they're down there? You didn't like that the pond is so deep but it's that depth that protected them and allowed them to make it.

P.S. What did you do with all that water you pumped out?

Everything is going good. I saw many more fish, including my blue shubunkin! I didn't find any dead guys :D Here is a picture of all the dried algae off the sides falling into the pond. It made me so mad but I couldn't scoop it out as it just desinigrated! It looks like I threw a bucket of flaked food in there. A lot of the fish came up and started eating it. I HOPE that is okay. Some of them ate quite a lot of it!
The water is pumping back in very slowly, it will probably take a day!

Hi Robyn. The water from the clay pond is fresh water, it is steadily flowing in and out through the creeks. The temp was exactly the same. It is different water, but the fish all came from that water last year so I thought they would tolerate it okay??? There should be around 60 fish in there. The water that I pumped out just went into the ditch and connected with the creek flowing out of the clay pond and then into the river. I did water all the trees that I could with it :D I didn't remove the fish, I just left about 2 feet of their water in there and then started filling it back up. I don't know what I will do now. Yes, I hate the pond being so deep, but since the fish seem to be doing so well I think I should just leave it??? Obviously they were protected enough so I would be hesitant to change anything and just do it all again the same next year. I am really really shocked that they were all alive in there. You should have seen me doing the victory dance when I started to see them. Good thing the video camera wasn't out!!!

Wow, that's some algae! It can tolerate sub-zero temperatures and months without hardly any light and yet grow so well. It shouldn't harm the fish to eat some. The liner seems very wrinkly. It looks like there's air between the liner and the ground. Is there? Could that be from the freezing and thawing? Just curious.

Actually it was so windy that it was billowing the liner out. It's not an actual pond liner or anything so I only expect to get another year out of it. I will have to change it out next spring, UGH, that is going to be a crappy job I am not looking forward too, but by then I am sure I will have a plan!

Hi KK Have not been on here since Friday too busy working on Phase one of the pond builds LOL At least that's what I tell the neighbors. So glad your fish came through ok.
No reason for them not to with that depth. The 0bvious Problem Mom could not see her Babies. :( I have never heard of suspended algae in the dead of winter growing so much. I have heard if you add quilt batting to your filter it will remove it once you get your UV going. Of course you will need to clean it many times. :huh:

FM3

Hey Froggy! Bet you have been busy working your but off! I guess the wedding is sneaking up on you too!!! Can you believe the warm weather I am having??? It's stuff even you would be jealous of, LOL. I am building my new filter today. I bought 4 bags of quilt batting just yesterday. The new water is 100% better but I can still only see about 3 feet down. The fish came up and fed last night, it was soooo exciting. I don't have a UV!!!!!! YIKES! guess I should get one. I just ordered a new pond pump today, the exact same one as I have already. I didn't want to spend that much money just to have a spare, but I would be in huge trouble if the pump ever failed! Better to be safe than sorry......hubby thinks I am nuttier than usual for doing that!

So KK, what are your plans for the big hole? Are you going to get the all fish out to the clay pond then leave it empty while you "spruce it up" for next winter?
Tia