Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Big Fish kill this week.

Well, I was last on the pond this past weekend and everything looked fine on the lil 1.5 acre place. I haven't fertilized or anything as the pond has naturally had a bloom going. I know fish kills due to D.O. absence usually occurs in summer or fall. But this appears to be just that.

I was unable to visit the pond until this morning and discovered all the large bass and sunfish were dead lining all of the bank. It has been hot this past week, but not much overcast clouds. The wind is ALWAYS blowing on the pond. The water has gone from a bloom of green to a milky light grey. It appears that the bloom might have died, but if I didn't know better I'd say something was added to the water but that would take a lot. We've been in a slight drought for the past few weeks, and received rain yesterday, and the fish appear to have been dead or dying for at least a day or two. I've seen both large and small (1.5") dead near the shore and all of the surviving fish are gulping for air at the surface. With the pond so out of balance after this, I'm wondering if I need to drain it and start over. I only stocked in 2003 If some small bass were able to spawn this spring I guess I could consider this year one of my stocking, but I really don't know what I've got or will have left.

It was tough seeing all those 4+ lb bass and large coppernose bluegill lining the shores belly up. This appears to have happened so fast, I'm not sure what I could have done to prevent it. I've not had any of these type problems since its been stocked, as the winds keep the water turned over in it constantly. I was driving around with my boat with the trolling motor chopping but heck most of them bigger ones are already dead, I'm figuring its not worth it. I guess its back to the drawing board.

I'm near some farm land and I'm wondering if anything could have affected the pond in such a way, but since I've not had problems in the past I just am unsure.

Alo wondering if anyone else saw anything like this or saw odd things with their ponds/bloom etc this week here in Mississippi.

This post makes my heart hurt. I've been there. Just because I've had fish kills doesn't mean I'm qualified to discuss what happened here, JM, but keep in mind the fifteen minute rule. If you ran out of oxygen for fifteen minutes, you can lose all your fish. Did the wind let up during the night? Do you aerate? If you went windless, without aeration, during an algae crash, you could have had a critical DO event. Hopefully somebody better qualified than me will kick in here, but if sounds like an oxygen thing. Remember too, that as plants die (even single celled algae), they consume oxygen instead of producing it. Aquaculturists shudder at the thought of "losing their bloom". I hope this works out and I'm very sorry for your fish loss.

JM :

No problems at our ponds no major bloom yet. No fish stressors apparent. We have had good weather some rain no real high temps. What was the visibility at your pond last time you saw it prior to the problem. Did you check with DEQ ? Call Bill Maley 601-372-4651(fisheries specialist) with the Hinds Co. ext. service and tell him I think he needs to check this out. He lives down toward you. This is an odd situation for this time of year. I have not heard of a DO fish kill in these parts at this time of year. I am wondering if you had to many fish which caused extra stress and reached capacity.

I planned to call Bill on Monday and hope he will take a trip out if things still look as they do now. It is odd for this time of year. I don't know if grabbing a few jugs of water would allow it to be tested within the next week for any mysterious chemicals would be beneficial or not. The visibility was about 14 inches last weekend, the bloom was pretty heavy. Throughout the day today the water is looking more and more milky light grey. I'm wondering if they sprayed the fields with something this past week and it got into the pond. But since the bloom is not really visible, it appears something killed the plankton in there causing the events to unfold. This morning when I posted there were many small fish over about 1/2 the surface area while I took the boat out that would only move away when the boat got very close to them. This afternoon moments ago there were only a few pockets of them along the shoreline.

It looks really odd, I've had what I thought was the bloom die off during the summer the past two years and the water just lost the green and went to a darker brownish color. There was more algae in the pond along the banks compared to the last 2 years. It looks like things just aligned badly for the pond. Was very hot and drought like over the past couple of weeks and then overcast early Friday morning with a cold front that came in with alot of rain. I'm guessing that the hot weather might have possibly had the bloom under strees and that there was enough of the new cold water coming into the pond on Friday that had the whole pond turn over. That's about it...I'll report more as things happen.

Just a quick follow up. After talking with Bill Maily this morning, I discovered that I'm not the only one with the big Fish Kill. So after his achilles tendon heals up and the sunfish spawn a little more, we are gonna get out the seine net and see whats left in June. That way if there aren't any little bass I should be able to get some stocked and start the process over. Though I may have to put in some larger bass depending on how many little sunfish I have. It will be an interesting process, and at least I can look at this as another experience I can learn something from.

Glad Bill could help with some info. You may have more fish left than you think. Keep watching and make a list/report of all the factors and info you can recall - dates -times - alkalinity - weather - fish - temps - pond history -put it all down so Bill can look at it for assessment. Did he say where else had die offs ?

He just mentioned other areas in general that had a large influx of the cold rain and water, with full blooms and a pond full of hot water. He seemed rather busy this morning