Waaaaa! Disaster!!

[Salar]

Came home last night, went down to the end of the garden to give the hens some scraps, and stood staring in amazement at a nearly empty pond!!! I run a pump through a filter box and back through a water spout thing and it would appear the filter box froze but the pump kept chucking water at it, which overflowed into the ground rather than recirculating. Net result was a couple of inches of water at the bottom of the pond, and I could see through the ice some of my smaller goldfish and golden orfe still moving, but could not see the rudd, small common carp or the two 3lb commons I have in there. I refilled the pond to half full from a garden tap, but no more as I did not want to damage the fish with too much tap water. I'll progressively refill over the next few days (450 gallon pond). Its been -4 degrees C at night - what does anyone think will happen to the fish, will they survive?

[peter mccue]

Salar,

 

Fish are amazingly resilient, whilst on holiday my son picked up a dried out Goldfish off the grass - it had obviously fell out of someones keepnet - put it in a bowl at the caravan & it recovered It now resides in his tank at home seemingly no worse for its ordeal.

 

I wouldn't worry too much about your Goldies or Orfe & I don't think an excess of tap water will do them any real harm.

 

As to your Carp & Rudd, If they are natural coloured fish they can be hard to see in cloudy water so may still be there. However, I would have thought two 3lb Carp should have been easily spotted in 2 inches of water!

 

I think you may be alright though, because if a Heron had visited the pond I would have expected the Goldfish & Orfe to be the first casualties.

[Elton]

Similar thing happened to me - it was a pipe coming loose that did it.

 

Luckily, I was at work and my wife had to deal with it. It was then that we realised just how many frogs get into a pond.....and she hates frogs

 

The fish were in a couple of inches of mud and we filled the pond back up and added some chemicals (it's around 3000 gallons). A few of the juvenile fish died, but most lived.

 

Good luck!

 

Elton

[poledark]

That is exactly the reason I made my filter setup so that if the return path was blocked for any reason, then water would cease to flow.

Den

[Elton]

poledark:

That is exactly the reason I made my filter setup so that if the return path was blocked for any reason, then water would cease to flow.

Den

I just bought a jubilee clip

[peter mccue]

Salar, Put an overflow at the top of the box which runs directly into the pond.

[Peter Gowman]

Fish, being cold blooded and the weather being cold should prove to be good news.

Terrible thing to happen though, I hope everything is OK. I simply place my pump on a mid shelf, better a burnt out pump than your problem.

[Bradford Angler]

If the top of the pond is frozen, then the water beneath will be of temperature where most fish nolonger require feeding. Therefore will be less waste floating around, so there is no need to run the filtration system. Also these two major points should be taken into consideration

 

(1) Water is most dense at 4 degrees c. That basically means the water at the bottom of the pond is the warmest, if only by a small amount. For this to work the head of water above the bottom of the pond must be 28". Nature has derived life to be supported at this level of temp. By inserting a pump into the pond, you are breaking the natural balance of nature and recirculating the water, basically continuously mixing the water temps together and losing the desired natural temp at the bottom of the pond.

 

(2) Cold water, near freezing holds more oxygen, and the surface of a pond is capable of absorbing enought oxygen to support the recommended stockings - unless you have gone mad with throwing the fish in. Water at the surface (coldest) absorbs more oxygen, and this is why we see fish topping under the ice, basically the water is highly oxygen rich and attracts the fish.

 

me - if I were you . . I'd leave the pump off till the water warms a bit and the chance of freezing is well gone.

[Peter Gowman]

In our climate the ratio of time when the temperature is below 4 celsius as opposed to above indicates that the correct option is to leave the pump running. Especially if a biological filter is attached, this allows the bacteria to adjust naturally to temperature fluctuations(which can be quite large and regular in our winter). One week of very mild temperatures without the filter operating can cause water quality problems.

[MrWiggly]

I agree ... My pump and filter have run constanty for the last 3 years . Result .. No Ice .. No Problems.