Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Unintended Expiriment

I've followed, with great interest, some of the threads dealing with pond/ice winter kill this year. Frankly, some of the comments really surprised me, especially the warnings from some of the most revered contributors on this site. Well, unfortunately I have been forced to perform an experiment on this topic for all of us northerners this Winter.
Let me set the stage. My pond is a 5 year old 1/2 acre lined pond located in north central Ohio (Tiffin). Half of the pond is 12' deep with the rest being beach area and other habitat structure & sand shelfs that I created for fish habitat/spawning. The average depth of these areas is 4'. I aerate 24/7 from mid-April to mid-November and shut it down completely over the winter.
The bio-mass is as follows. 30-35ea. 4-5 y/o HSB around 3-5lbs each & 20ea. 6-8" HSB; 80ea. 4-5 y/o YP 11-13" & 30ea 6" YP.
Also approximately 30ea. 10-11" BC, 3ea. LMB (4lb) & 3ea. 13" WE.
Up until this year ice cover has not been an issue because the pond would freeze over for a few days and then thaw. However it has now been frozen solid for over two months and it will be another 2 weeks till it opens up.
I'll let you all know what I discover when that time comes.

Has yours ever winter killed ? Winter kill is often a reoccurring problem in a pond that has that history. Often for various reasons - not always the same.

What kind of plant growth do you have on the bottom (as your pond is lined), and did you keep any snow off the ice during the winter?

Jeff: I am just curious, why do some of the comments surprise you? Do you think the comments were overstated (scary without needing to be) or that they warned of a situation that might be impacting you.

In your pond do you feed or is it all left natural?

Cheers Don.

Very good point Eric although unfortunately up here in the midwest and upper midwest this winter has been unprecedented for cold and snowfall, that is either an all time record or 2nd or 3rd worst since records have been kept in the 19th century.

This would be an experiment I would not want to do!

EWEST: I have had no problems with winter kill or mortality of any sort so far......just a tasty meal occasionally.

Sunil: There's not much plantlife as you noted it is a lined pond alough the habitat shelves and beach are all coated with about 6" of sand so about half of the bottom is sand covered. I do manually clean out bushels of Chara every summer.
I was able to get out a couple of times to clean snow off of about 30% of the surface (snow blower) but to Cecil's point, I am 56 y/o and this is the worst winter I have lived through. Seemed like you'd clean it off and the next day we'd get another 4-6". I actaully had to go out and get a large snowblower this year to keep up. This is the first year I haven't just shoveled.

Bing: No offense meant to anyone but yes I do believe some of the warnings were a bit overstated. I believe fish are primarily dormant over the winter and use very little oxygen in 35 degree water. Have you ever left a bucket of Emerald shiners in a garage when the temp is below freezing. The top ices over and as long as you break the ice occassionally those darn things will live for weeks. In the spring they won't survive overnight.

Don: I do both types of feeding. I pellet feed every 2-3 days and I stock around 50lbs of fatheads per year. I also stock Tilapia evry year and have Crapie and Perch spawn which I know are primarily getting consumed as there is very little recruitment.

Thanks for the questions all and I'm looking forward anxiously to the results of this and hoping that my hunches are correct.

I'm hoping that you didn't suffer any losses, but either way I would hardly consider the results gained from one pond in Ohio to be conclusive evidence one way or the other.

As we're fond of saying here...it all depends, and no two BOW are exactly alike.

Fish have differing levels of oxygen demand. Larger fish tend to suffer more from low O2. It's hard to extrapolate from shiners to BG or LMB that are 10 or 100 times larger.

There have been several reports of fish kills posted here already so I think a lot of those predictions were correct. Depends on your latitude, pond depth, length of snow cover, amount of vegetation, etc. etc. but I don't recall a single winterkill photo being posted in the previous two winters combined that I've been posting here.

Well the pond finally opened up completely yesterday. The only loss that I could see was one bull frog. I actually saw a "big swirl" on the surface as we completed our walk around which I could tell was a good sized fish. I will not know the final results of my "unintended expirement" until my water temp. reaches approx. 55 degrees and its time to begin feeding but based on the location and size of the surface disturbance it had to be one of my larger HSB.
I know I've raised some eyebrows with this thread but I felt and still feel that it is neccesary to shed some light on this topic. As I stated previously, I was surprised by some of the "warnings" posted by people on this site about winter kill. Common sense will tell you that if your pond is only 6' deep and it freezes 3' down nothing can survive. But there were people on this site telling un-educated posters that they needed to either keep their ponds "open" all winter long or they had to clear snow off of them the day it happend. My "unintended expirement" showed that if you have a 1/2 acre pond that has 50% of it at 12'depth and your bio-mass is what it should be then you don't have to panic about winter kill. These are the facts, and that is what expirements create, FACTS. I get the "variable" part of all of this but the variables don't flucuate all that much from pond to pond if the structure is similar. The reason I started this thread was to educate some of the newer pond owners in northern states about ponds freezing over in the winter and I feel I have done that. I will follow up with final results hoefully within a couple weeks. Its supposed to get cold here again this week so I probably won't be feeding for a while. Thanks Jeff

Glad to hear you are O.K. Jeff, at least you think you are at this point. Hopefully you don't have a bunch of fish laying o the bottom. Sounds great!

As your eutrophicates over time I wonder if you will be so lucky without some open water in the winter.

Just saying hi ...

"HI" lol

I'm in WC IL ... 2/3 acre pond filled up last spring and I stocked in April, already had fish fry all around the edges last year ... masses of "pollywogs" no doubt helped everyone grow quickly, along with the other creatures.

Stocked according to what was recommended by the gov' guys (DNR?) ...
100 2-3" large mouth bass
50 4-6" channel catfish
250 1-2" bluegill
250 1-2" red eared sunfish

plus I was last in line and got some bonus fish they couldn't take home. Extra bag of hybrid bluegill, and maybe one of the sunfish.

Anyway, the frogs were jumpin two days after ice melted, but no sign of fish yet. Pond was down a foot or so over winter, still 7-8' for much of it. Not snow covered all the time, so am hoping I'm in good shape. Blue heron seems to think there is something to eat.

Thanks for all the input.

Bill ... near Payson, IL

gonna try this image thing from Facebook

Good for you Bill. Welcome aboard. Snow or lack thereof makes all the difference. Your new pond won't be as prone to winter kill as older established ponds.

Warnings are just that. A person should be warned that the more variables they tip out of their favor, the more likely they are to have a winter kill. Many members here have experienced winter kill, and are simply trying to keep people on alert to the potential causes and signs. No need for you to be arrogant or critical of the Pond Boss members.

This is an incorrect statement.

Common sense will tell you that fish that go without oxygen will die. Your logic is faulty. I'm aware of many of ponds and lakes that have seen 50% or more vertical freezing without winter kill. In fact, all of Nebraska's Western natural lakes have vertical freezes nearing or exceeding 50% of depth. While it's true that this increases the chance of winter kill, it by no means tells you that "nothing can survive".

Thank goodness the scientific community doesn't derive their facts from single event, non-variable controlled "experiments". Your situation is what is referred to as an "anecdote". Not an experiment. Experiments are performed by limiting variables, and then carefully documenting observations over a period of time.

I'm trying my absolute hardest to not sound disrespectful or sarcastic....but I'm having a hard time believing you're being serious here. I've owned nine ponds of various sizes, and managed several dozen others, and to be quite frank, I'm having a hard time thinking of any two ponds that weren't significantly different in character.

Bruce - Thank you for standing up for reality!

You're playing blackjack for the very first time, and the dealer is showing a 10.

You've got 18.

You know nothing, so you say "hit me".

The dealer floats you a 3.

The dealer then shows his down card as a Jack.

You win.

But that was neither "wise", nor an "experiment".

Over time, the people who educate themselves, use scientific based methodology, and make prudent decisions will take home the most money, or in this case grow the biggest fish.

Bingo!!

I believe this forum 100% directly saved my pond from catastrophic fish kill this year.. I had a kill a few years back and the weather then was nothing like this year.. I did everything I could this year to keep my fish alive and still lost 6 very large lmb and a trophy BG.. With my pond being well over 30 yrs old and the plant and biomass along with the population I have packed in this pond I'm lucky and and I can damn near guarantee there is no pond in my area remotely similar to mine.. I would call your experiment more like your experience for this winter but it's by no means a guideline anyone should follow except maybe you again next year..

Jeff,

You're not out of the woods yet. You might still have numerous stressed fish that will show up with bacterial and fungal infections in the next few weeks. If the fish are in a weakened state due to stress, they are susceptible to bacterial and fungal infections due to the fact their immune systems don't really work well in cold water.

I already found one like that in my pond today.

The fish was barely alive up against the bank and looks great on this side:



But has some type of infection here on the other side:

I'm just a novice, but like throwing ideas around.

My pic above shows the old barn by the pond. I considered putting clear plastic on the front side next year, and pulling aeration air out of the top side of that on warmer winter days, putting it into the four or five foot deep part of the pond to the left of the barn (in the pic). Or running it on warmer days, since we usually have more of those in west central Illinois than we had this year.

Would that warmer air make a difference, or not worth the "solar" effort? Depending on pump size and air tightness, I'd guess I could get 100 degree air on a 30 degree day, especially with snow reflecting extra light.

I'd read here (iirc) it's better not to just regularly aerate deep as it might chill the warmer water near the bottom, or mix it with colder water.

Snow is usually not all winter here, but I also wondered if running a pulse sprinkler wouldn't melt a lot of snow on a sunny afternoon ... since my pond is by the house. I'm not big on pushing snow around on the ice.

My new bluegill (right?) would make a nice splash for a little cat food.

These are the fry from the same year I put the one inchers in the pond, already about one inch themselves (BG, I assume) at end of August. Hopefully all small enough that they survived winter better.

Love that photo with the hybrid gills feeding on the surface....nice shot Illini Bill!