Nebraska Game and Parks private water specialist, and good friend of mine, Jeff Blaser was observing my farm the other day. I was showing him my circulation systems for my ponds and made a comment in regards to the fact that I thought my previous fish kills all occurred during early morning hours after a calm night. He stated that he has recently been getting a call every morning concerning late summer fish kills that he believed were related to a series of cloudy days and calm nights we've been having in Eastern Nebraska. Just thought I'd warn all of you that as water temps begin to cool, the plant communities in your ponds will tend to change, and possibly die off. If this occurs in conjunction with a calm night or cloudy day you may be prone to fish kills.
I noticed a phyto die-off on one of my ponds Saturday. No apparent harm this time but I sure need to seine the 4 inch CNBG and redears for relocation.
So far we have been OK Bruce, the emergency aerators we installed have been working well. As the water temps cool I think we will much less likely to see a fish kill. Right now the water temps are in the upper 60's at our pond. You are right, Jeff Blaser is a good guy.
Our water temps are dropping from rain , cloudy days and shorter daylight. As a result our bloom is brown and probably through being green for the year. I am glad we have had winds to move the water around. No sign of DO problems and fish are active.
When my wife was at the pond last week, I had her set the aerator to cut off from 10AM til 6PM just due to lower humidity and winds increasing evaporation rates. Hope I didnt screw up. Any thoughts?
Burgermeister,
That should be fine. By 10:00 the wind and sun should be strong enough to increase the oxygen levels in the pond. Typically it is the 3:00 am - 5:00 am when the problems with low D.O. are at their greatest.
cool post Bruce. my (aquatic) vegetation has shown die off as well, but i dont think its because of cooler temps as much as change in sun angle (south side of pond is bordered by medium heavy timber, so pond gets less light as we move towards fall). fortunately my Gams and GSF could care less what the O2 does, but after I get some other species in there, i'll have to pay closer attention.