Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Fish kill NE ohio

The ice finally melted, went out this morning to see all of my HSB dead. No other species so far. had aeration on all winter in shallow water. its been a long winter here. I hope my LMB make it.

So sorry to hear that.

What is the size and maximum depth of your pond and how deep was your aeration?

Just over 1/4 acre, max depth is confirmed at 10 ft. I had my diffuser set in 2-3 ft of water. What I find strange is that what ever caused this only effected the HSB, Even some small 6_8" ones. One of the HSB was 22" and atleast 5 lbs. He would have been an impressive fish this summer, sad. I would have rather the CC not made it.

Weird I had no HSB casualties only large LMB and one trophy BG..

Perhaps at only 1/4th acre you chilled the water column and the hybrids are more temperature sensitive? I wonder where the white bass component of the hybrids come from? Perhaps they come from the south and are not adapted to chilled water temps? Or maybe they need more D.O. than the other fish?

My 1/10th acre trout pond got down to 32.5 F. from top to bottom, but fortunately the trout are adapted to that from evolving in streams and rivers that become chilled. It didn't even phase them.

Just a WAG and I may be totally off on that.

So far I have taken out a five gallon bucket of dead bullfrogs and there are at least that many more to go. Many bluegills are dead. I saw one grass carp floating out of six I have. Hundreds of tadpoles are laying on the bottom. So far I have not seen any Golden Shiners or Fatheads dead. As the ice melted I see islands of curly leaf pond weed floating on the surface that the grass carp probably worked on during the ice cover. As soon as the rivers warm up I will trap crayfish to clean up the dead fish and frogs on the bottom of the pond. The two Canadian Geese that are on the pond right now are eating the curly leaf pond weed floating on the surface. I look at them as an asset as long as I don't have to many, and I never have over the years on my pond. Probably because of my dogs.

John, check for muskrats. They'll dig up and eat the roots of CLPW.

Pure striped bass don't like extremely cold water. Pure striped bass in their native habitat, spend the winters off the coast of southern VA and NC in oceanic waters that don't get frozen over.

Bingo!

Hybrid striped bass also don't like low DO, but I don't know the lower limit. A guy told me today that he lost only his 20" HSB last summer during a power and aeration outage. All other fish of LMB, BG, CC survived. This is very likely why the HSB in 'sawgunnerusmc's above post died during the stressful Ohio winter. Low enough DO to kill HSB but not others.

Makes sense Bill. Remember how George1 told us how sensitive hybrid striped bass were in catch and release in warm water and he revived with pure oxygen?

It would be nice to know the minimal DO required by HSB at several temps such as 40F, 60F and 80F. ewest may be able to help us? I suspect the minimum DO for HSB is close to but slightly lower than that for trout at similar temps. Maybe 1ppm lower than trout and 0.5 to 1ppm higher than the minimum for LMB.

I think the size of the HSB would also factor in. The tolerance of a 12" HSB would be far lower than that of a 24" HSB.

Bill, I think you are on to something. The clients pond that winterkilled a few years ago had 12" HSB and 1# RBT in it. All the HSB died, but only 80% of the RBT died.

Wouldn't be the other way around? I thought larger fish had less tolerance to low D.O.?

I will keep an eye out for muskrats esshup but as I have said I think my dog keeps them away. For the kind of pond I try to have I didn't mind the muskrats and their holes on the far side of the pond for the benefits they provided for the kind of pond I try to have.

With the warm weather yesterday I did see minnows so they survived the winter OK and so I won't have to restock them. The winter took a terrible toll on the frogs but I saw a few tadpoles and so they will recover, but without these great algae eaters I look for some problems this year. Lots of bluegill dead but I'm sure a few survived to restock them selves. I have two floating grass carp out of six so it could be all six are dead. I will restock them. All in all it could have been worse.