Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations What just happend??????

I am just a little bit confused This morning I went to do a little bit of Bass fishing and noticed the bodies of my grass carp on the far side of the pond. I had stocked them 2.5 years ago and have not seen hide or fin of them since, until today. Tweleve stocked.. twelve dead We have had a mild dry spell here with very little rain over the summer,my pond has lowered about two feet, the middle of the 2.5 ac pond is 14ft, I have not seen any Bass or BG dead. Nor do I want to. Im pretty sure that there are a few buffalo carp somewhere out there..but not dead, just the grass carp. this was a very quick kill,the bodies were not there one week ago.Any ideas on what might have happened? I used copper sulfate along the edge of the pond in mid june this year, worked well on the coontail, about 70% removed.This is about all I have really added this year.Oh.. to answer Sunils poll, put me down as a NO

Mr. Willy,

I don't know if you've read any of my previous posts on die offs and grass carp but here's a quick breakdown.

People think that since grass carp has the word "carp" in it that they are somehow really hardy. In fact, every time I've had a die off or oxygen crash in any of my ponds the grass carp have been the first to go. I've seen your situation personally on my farm three different times. Refer to the following thread. http://www.pondboss.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=20;t=001949

As you can see, grass carp have been what you might call a "canary in a coal mine"--or evidence of a major problem that is happening or has already happened.

I would analyze the following things from the last 48 hours.

1. Has you water color changed?

2. Is there evidence of vegetation death, either algae or macrophytes.

3. What were the winds like the last couple of days.

I'd be really cautious about your other fish for a few days.

Mr.W. Bruce has suggested a very likely cause for the grass carp deaths. The recent cold front could have cause some mixing of low oxygen water to the surface and the most sensitive fish died first. More deaths of other fish strongly point to oxygen shortages as Bruce describes.

Here is another possibility for deaths without knowing very much about your situation.

Grass carp (GC) are very, very sensitive to copper as a toxic agent. Since you did'nt kill all the plants with the June weed treatment, I suspect that the GC ate or for the last several weeks have been consuming copper laced plant growth. Weeks of eating plants with levels of copper, it built up in their systems it finally developed high enough concentrations to shut down essential body systems and killed them.

All of one species of fish dying in a short time period points to non-natural deaths. The first thing I would consider would be the eating habits and possible toxicity from food items. Second would be water quality issues, such as DO or ammonia levels. Other species specific toxicity factors could be responsible. Watch the pond (surface & bottom areas) for unusual fish behavior or any deaths of other types of fish.

I have seen an ocassional, random grass carp unexplained deaths that I attribute to genetic malfunctions of the triploidy, genetic factor. I very much doubt all 12 of you GC died at once from that possiblity.

I am not sure of the bioaccumulative pathways of copper precititates in all inhabitants of the pond. The deaths may not have been due to eating copper absorbed by the plants. Deaths could maybe have occurred due to the fish eating copper carbonate perciptates that had settled on the remaining edible plants. Gradual accumulations then made the fish sick.

I have seen koi (carp, minnow family) die several months after date of stocking from apparently rooting in heavy copper laden sediments and eating the sediment associated food items.

Great points, Bill.

I'd be really interested in checking the pond the next couple of days. If even a few bluegill show up dead, vs. none at all you might be able to differentiate between eating habits vs. oxygen crash. If you did have a major O2 sag it would seem that at least a couple of bluegill would have died.

A side point, just FYI terrestrial scavengers will come and take smaller carcasses first a lot of times. I've found that the bigger carcasses get left alone maybe while the little carcasses get dragged up the bank a ways. Look real close for other species.

Bill, are there similar problems with adding aluminum sulfate ?

The weather conditons in my area just south of Des Moines have been running in the low 90s with a fairly steady wind blowing the last few weeks, 15 to20 mph.We recenty had quite a strong front move in the last few days droping the temps into the low seventies,( all the rain went around me of course :rolleyes: )The pond usually has a slight light green tint to it this time of year,but has now gone to a dirty brown (chocolate milk)look to it, looking over Bruces post, it seems very simular to one of his situations.I will be taking a closer look for other fish types, In June I used a old pillow case tied to the boat and dragged about 18pds around the perimeter of the pond (too much?)I was hoping to do this again on a every other year basis.I will let you all know what i find.Thanks for the input all.

More information leads me to agree more with Bruce's theories. I now also suspect decreased DO is your killer. On the topic of herbicide selection, I am surprised that copper sulfate killed the coontail. I would look into using another type of herbcide to control coontail. Copper sulfate is not a good choice for this job in my opinion. Copper sulf. is for algae control and coontail is an aquatic vascular plant (aquatic macrophyte). Kelly Duffie may read this and provide a good alternative chemical for coontail control.

Eastland. I am not aware of any reported toxcities from the metalic ions due to treatment with recommended doses of aluminum sulfate. Repeated heavy doses of aluminum sulfate over time could lead to problems in the ecosystem but I am not aware of reports documentating this either.

Mr. Willy :

Sorry about your GC . I wanted to warn you about the use of copper sulfate. I use it once in a while but in very small amounts and only sprayed out of a sprayer after dilution on the plants to be treated. When treating an entire pond I would not use CU sul. I would use a cleated copper product. CU sul. requires that there be enough alkalinity in the water to work and under many circumstances can cause many fish (short term} to not be able to uptake O2 if to much is used. I don't believe this is what happened to your GC as the result set out above is quick (15 min. to 1 hr.). I am not an expert on this but 18 lbs. of CU Sul. is a lot in a 2.5 acre pond . In addition CU Sul. uses up the available alkalinity and can cause your water quality to become to acidic to produce a plankton bloom if you are in a low alkalinity state. ewest

Mr Willy - if you applied enough copper sulfate to kill coontail, you probably used too much (IMO) - although it still isn't a certainty that it was the culprit for your GC's death.

Many forms of algae are susceptible to copper at low to moderate rates ~~ .25 - 1 ppm, depending on water hardness. For a CuSO4 dosage-rate, that translates into .67 to 2.6 lbs per acre-foot.

Assuming your pond has an average depth of 6' - and has 2.5 surface-acres, you'd have 15 acre-feet of water. Under this assumption, your 18# application was less than .5 ppm - BUT only if it was dispersed throughout the pond's surface and volume of water. It sounds like you concentrated your application around the pond's perimeter - which would have greatly amplified the copper levels both within the water (at the time of the treatment) and on the perimeter-bottom (since CuSO4 will rapidly precipitate to the bottom of the treatment area).

In short, although CuSO4 will definitely kill coontail, it takes a lot higher copper concentration to accomplish that objective than is normally used for algae treatments (probably 2+ ppm). And, in doing so, a high accumulation of copper in the pond's perimeter hydrosoil is very likely - and in theory, could cause the demise of copper-sensitive fish (ie GC) that are actively feeding within that hydrosoil.

If coontail treatments become necessary, I would strongly encourage other options besides CuSO4. Depending on the pond's water-dynamics, any water-use considerations and the coontail infestation level, AQUATHOL K or SUPER K, SONAR, NAVIGATE, AQUA-KLEEN, NAUTIQUE or REWARD are all potential options.

Thanks Kelly for the good advice, I know you have posted that info before ( I really should listen to you guys more) But sometimes the wallet overrides the brain and it did end up costing me more. But with all the coontail finally gone I think it will help jump-start my pond for the better.

Here are some of my tips for using copper sulfate if you need to:

1. Think conservative on the amount you are going to use. Treat only a portion of the pond at a time, not the whole pond at once. A small amount goes a long way in treating algea in it's different forms.

2. Do not treat the pond unless it is a fairly windy day. As the water temperatures get warmer in the summer, be even more cautious in using copper sulfate. If it's dead calm in mid August, then treating the entire pond is inviting a fish kill.

3. Buy your copper sulfate in the largest crystal form you can find, crushed (almost powder form) copper sulfate dissolves too quickly and can overwhelm a small area of your pond. The larges crystals (nickle to golf ball size) take much longer to dissolve and do not concentrate as heavily in an small area.

4. Always leave some portion of your pond untreated. We usually just treat out in front of the house on the north side of the pond and occasionally treat the south side of the pond. The west (shallow end) of our pond never gets treated.

I need some help pros! take a close look at the carp photos at the beginning of this post, is this a buffalo or grass carp? I put tweleve 12" grass carp in my pond 2yrs ago.Today I pulled out 18 identical carp bodies out of my pond. I know these fish can grow to hugh proportions quickly,but not this quick. My largest carp was 50" in length and 33" around and was well over 55 pds.Most of the others were very close to this size with only 2 or3 under 36" long. The good news is so far these are the only fish dead.By the looks of it most of my submerged plants are toast, and there are very dark black-green-gray clusters of algae floating on the pond. I sure wish it would rain some! P.S. What's the best way to get rid of all this flesh? Thanks.

It's a Grass Carp. No barbels; mouth at the front of the head, not on the bottom; lips like a former POTUS/Peanut Farmer.

I can't stand it any longer!!! What is a POTUS/farmer???

President Of The United States (P.O.T.U.S.)

Peanut Farmer is a reference to the Allman Brothers Band's number one fan, Mr. Jimmy Carter.

Thanks, should have figured that since he is from
this great state of GA.,and being a peanut farmer
is his legacy. Sad to admit, but I thougth that there might be a new dirty joke going a round that I had missed.