Thanks for the thoughful reply! Wondered about the D.O. meter, but assumed you just got busy. Not sure I need it now that we survived a pretty nasty hot summer with perhaps 10+ days of 90's and even a few high 90's days.
In sorting this out, the 8 trout deaths, after your input I can now conclude the following:
1) I need to put some burlap or maybe that black weed barrier stuff temporarily on the open dirt banks(I'll seed next spring as well)
2) the wash out factor got screwed up because my brother attached a 5" pvs s- curve to the output pipe to attempt to start rasining the water levels another 6" - so zero outflow (I have since yanked it off- so there is continous outflow (maybe 15 gpm or so)
3)I am reasonably confident that the death rate was limited to less than 10, since my brother saw zero mortalities on 8/28, the web weather history reports the two heavy rain days were 8/29 and 8/30 and I arrive on 8/30 dound 7 dead and three days later he was up there agin and found 1 additional dead. So- there wasn't much un-monitored time and little rotting time with 60-65 degree water etc.
4) Good news is that we estimate over 100-120 survivors, given the very active feeding.
5) the other mistake we made was to up the feeding schedule during the hottest time (late July / early August) to 3+ lbs. The we dropped it to 2.75lbs(1.7% tbw / daily per chart) When I found the dead trout, I dropped it 20% to about 2.25 lbs. /day and given yoru previous post on this- it is likely to increase health. I am guessing the diabetes dynamic kicked in. I am planning on dropping it another 25% next week when I go up again to perhaps 1.7lbs or less / day as water temps are likely to have dropped to about 58-60.
I think these changes, burlap near edges, cut back feeding and KEEP output flowing will re-stabilize the pond. Thanks for helping me to put all the pieces together. I appreciate your knowledge, helpful info and support!!!
