Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding They've left the beds and quit feeding

Thanks for keeping my feet on the ground ewest, I was aware of the need for O2 for egg maturization, but that had slipped my mind.

I think it was more of a temp change issue than O2, tho. Simply because I haven't seen any sign of fish smothering. The surface temp at 4:00 today is back up to 94, but the fish fed better than they have in days and a few GSF have returned to the shoreline nests. Dang they like to get shallow.

Being that my water is darker now, with less visibility, I'm not quite as concerned as when the visibility was pushing 48". With that much UV penetration I got worried that they may be getting crowded into an ever shrinking layer of good water, both temp and O2 wise.

Somewhere down the road, there's a DO meter in my future, but an aerator has priority....after the honey do's naturally. Right now, I'm flying blind as to just how deep my thermocline is. I'm hoping around 6 feet, but I have no way of being certain. Wish I still had my old combo-selector. It had a probe that could be lowered and you could measure PH, temp and light penetration as it would supposedly tell you which colors were most visible at that depth. It had a white cap on the probe that served as a visibility gauge too. A significant change in temp is where the thermocline should be. Now you have to buy something to do each one.

Anyway...If I do decide to use the outboard again, it'll stay trimmed shallow and just chop up the surface so I'm not pulling up dead water, just to be safe. If it were possible, I'd do it in the mornings, since that would be the best time to add O2, but I'm off to work long before sunrise.