Pond Boss Forums AERATION Systems questions Emergency Fish kill as I type

What to do. I noticed when I looked out at the pond this morning that I could see my trout swimming with their fins out of the water. Not usuall. I remembered that this April I had a fish kill and they were swimming like that also. While feeding my fish this morning they were not eating and I soon saw one 19" trout on his side trying to get air.
Here is what I have done so far. I placed my garden hose on spray and have it spraying into the water. I hooked up my air compressor to a leaky air hose and put it in the deep part of the pond. I did net the trout and put him near the aeration. He swam away and I haven't seen him since. Good I think!
No I don't have aeration. I only found this site last month and have been doing research on aeration. See my other post.
Is there anything else I can do ????

We are having a strange spring up here in NY. This past week has been in the 90 s and thunder storms very high humidity warm nights. August weather.

RK,You may be ok for now in that size pond, keep splashing the surface and bubbling from the bottom, Be careful not to raise the water temp too high. Continue to research aeration and get some type of aeration soon, PS Do not add any dyes or chemistry of any kind until aerated poperly as it will make a bad situation worse.Ted

RK,

Like Ted mentioned, be cautious using bottom aeration to raise the oxygen level in a trout pond this time of year. There are a number of posts that touch on the subject, do a search. I'd hate to see you win the O2 battle but lose your trout to water temps that become too high.


Russ

I just took some readings. DO is 5 at 6" next to shore using chemical test. Temperatures range from 74 which I have never seen in my pond before to 58.3 at bottom near my air compressor aeration. Last year the temp never reached 70 that I know of. Trout are not looking well. Keep near the shallow end. You might know, the warm part.

Thanks for the replys, I have learned so much from this site in the past 3 weeks. Wish I had found this site before my spring stocking. I added 10BG,8LGB,Golden shiners, 5Koi and I hate to admit this 10 Black Crappie( Don't ask me why). Decided trout were nice but don't spawn.

RK,At 74 F saturation would be 8.5 PPM and at 6 inch depth should be higher than the 5 tested. You may have a better reading than you think.59 F would hold 10 ppm if 100% saturated. Put hose water at the warm end and see if that will cool that area off or perhaps you already are.Good Luck

A useful emergency way to raise DO levels in a pond is to mount a small outboard engine in a fixed position, e.g. pier or boat that is unmovable and run it wide open for a while. I haven't had to resort to this, but know of commercial growers who say that in a power emergency coupled with DO crash, that is what they do....effectiveness is limited by the ponds size, i.e. a very large pond wouldn't benefit much from this but it seems like a small one would, in an emergency.

Temp dropped to 72 at surface. I did run a hose spraying into the shallow end most of the day. My compressor did not make it through the day. But it did help while it lasted. Needed a new one anyway.
Lost one fish this evening 19" rainbow. I expect tomorrow to be worse. Weather is terible and will continue till mid week.

Thanks for your ideas. I'll read up on aeration tonight.

If you have a domestic water source that does 7 gpm you can rig a three-way from your outlet and run three hoses to the pond. Each hose can be attached to a sweeper nozzle which delivers 2.3 gpm at super high pressure. Each hose can then be placed toward the center of the pond, below the surface, in three different areas. If oriented upwards, from about eight inches below the surface, each sweeper nozzle will create significant surface agitation without disrupting any small thermocline you may have. This will have the dual effect of delivering slightly cooler water, breaking up surface tension to increase overall DO and giving your trout another option.

Remember, trout will chase adequate DO before they'll go to adequate temps. If your trout are lingering in the warmer water, then you most certainly are having a DO crash.

Water's too warm with subsequent lower D.O's. Once your temps go to 70 you are in trouble with trout. At that point a surface aerator would be your best bet. Hope they make it until seasonable temps come around. I have the same weather here in northern Indiana. So far no problems with the aerated well water keeping temps down. I have to play a guessing game however with the bottom diffuser as too high of air flow and I warm the water, and too low and I may have low oxygen in the deep water. Can't wait for the cool down by Wednesday night!

I don't understand how the aerator raises the temp. It raises the cool water which I thought would lower the temp.

I just put a pool pump in with the pipe 1' off the bottom and the output running over a plastic sled and splashing into the pond. I hope this helps for a day till we get back to 80's. Looks like I only have two trout left.

Now today I just happened to look down at the pond and a snapper about 12" was walking into the pond.

I'm still looking into aeration but not sure what to get yet. Some look to big others to small.

RennyK, I don't aerate, so I have no experience here, but I think that the bottom aeration can increase the water temps because it's a constant feed of "hot" air into the water.

The same thing in the winter. If it's consistently colder in the air (less than freezing), you'll actually be cooling the water.

Additionally you're bringing up cool water and exposing it to the warm air temps. At least that's what I think, but I don't know for sure as I can't get out and measure the pond temp profile. There is no pier in this pond and bringing up the boat is a real pain.

So far temps in up to three feet of water (as far as I can get the temp sensor out) are not above 65 F even in very hot weather. Trout feed vigorously morning and evening which is a good sign. They are also brook trout which are more sensitive to marginal water temps, and I've only seen one mort in several weeks. That one floated up and had been dead for a while, and was probably one that fought hard and got off a week or less before. I normally don't fish for them until harvest, but I had an elderly gentlemen over that had won a fish and a mount of it through a raffle ticket for a fund raiser. His brook trout was 3 lbs. 5 1/2 ounces and 18 5/8 inches long on a measuring board.

Hope things work out for you RennyK as this hot weather worries me too.

Lost my biggest trout this morning, 21" x 3.8lbs
Turned off the pool pump looks like water was getting warmer. Maybe I'll raise the inlet hose up higher.
A little cooler today. Water is very cloudy maybe 12" visibility. Don't see much fish activity. One trout did eat a little.

I just remembered that last year while swimming in the pond I noticed that it was warm until you let your legs hang down. You could feel the temp difference. I'm beginning to understand now.

What do people do who haven't found this site ?

Hope to have aeration by next week.

The more water is stirred or mixed, the more quickly that water temp. equalizes with air temp. Same reason you stir your coffee to cool it.

Found a dead brook trout this morning. If that is it I will be happy. After doing some fish farming for a few years I don't get too excited about a dead fish now and then as long as the rest of the fish are feeding well.

Interesting thing is I have brook trout from two different sources in the pond. One source is always the one that will be the morts if any with only one exception. Seems like the other source's brooks are hardier. I know this because the hardier source has a clipped fin.

A friend is picking up my oxygen meter/temp meter this morning. He's been losing a good number of brook trout in his friend's pond. I'm almost positive it's due to warm temps as I'm skeptical his well flow is enough to keep up with the warm ambient air temps. They don't know what the water temp is! LOL

Many of the fish are showing signs of exopathalmous (sp?) (bulging eyes) which is probably due to bacterial or viral infections due to the stress. I find it doubtful it's gas bubble trauma as this would have happened before. And there is no really good reason for gbt.

Lost the remaining trout today. A few dead minnows.
Here are my readings for today for your info.

Pond info 45’wide, 165 long 06/15/05 Air temp 76.1 4:30pm
Measurements in center of pond
South 135’from north end
Middle 75’ from north end
North 38’ from north end
South
Depth Temp
8
7 65.7
6 71.2
5 72.7
4 73.2
3 73.6
2 74.1
1 75.9
Middle
Depth Temp
8 59.5
7 67.8
6 71.8
5 73.2
4 73.2
3 73.4
2 74.5
1 75.9
North end
Depth Temp
6 73
5 73.2
4 73.2
3 73.8
2 74.3
1 75.9

Stopped using pool pump 48 hours ago.
Pond is at the bottom of hill. 20 feet from creek. Trees around 80% of perimeter.

06/12/05 11:00am Air temp 88.5 during fish kill
Middle 58.3 at 8’deep 74 at 1’ deep

After looking at the data It looks like I might of raised the temp by using the pump to add air. Maybe it would of happened anyway. What can we learn from this data ?