water changes for ponds in winter

[Kimmy]

Think about it.... nature doesn't do it and fisheries don't do it. They have a balance and obvioulsly and natural underground filter system as you would have in a fish tank.

If you only spot a problem when your fish begin to die, then you need to look closer and more often to your fish, because they will show signs of stress well before they pop off.

[Scott]

Winter water changes around 10%, if I wanted to only have a 10% water change per week in the winter I would have to put some type of cover over the pond, it rains a lot up here.

 

Scott.

[Peter Gowman]

First class answer Kimmy. Spot on. A good filtration system, a good ultra violet, a good balance of plants and fish and they should all live happily ever after. It's the chemical companies that would like us to change water regularly. Watching the fish is the only true maintenance. You soon know when they are not happy.

[Bradford Angler]

okay - this is hyperthetical

 

you watch your fish daily, they are feeding, everything is running well and water checks are okay (not spot on - but well with tolerance)

 

one morning you get up and find a fish which was feeding the day before dead - no new fish added either . . what is the cause ?

 

it's not old age or poor breeding (hopefully)

 

what would you go for ??

[Bruno Broughton]

Suicide!

 

Most of the pond fish you can buy from normal retail outlets are pretty lousy as fish go, and they either have (or will develop) problems. It come with cheap, nasty imports.

 

Prevention being better than cure, I suggest that you START by buying high quality, British-bred stock, put them in quarrantine first and expose them to a 'commando course' of treatments. The survivors will be as tough as nails and not keel over at the first sign of frost or the first whiff of ammonia. In my PhD time, this is how the lab. in which I was based used to deal with 100 golfish a week destined for long-term experimentation.