Great question DamdWaters.
Yes, our area was severally impacted by the flooding this year. The ponds did overflow, but there were no other water sheds that invaded them. All of the water that flows into the ponds are from my property, 5 acres, and no stream or springs (that I know of) feed into them.
Now that you mentioned it, it does seem like the problem started about a month after the water went down. I don't overly fertilize the yard, and use almost no pesticides, so I don't think there was a lot of contamination put in, but maybe some. The only thing that does not make since, is I dug a small tank for overwinter and raising some bluegill in, about 3000 gallons, and I noticed a few of them started developing the same symptoms, with two deaths out of 100 over the last three weeks. 100% of that water was well water, which in the past has proved to be very favorable to any fish I put in tanks. The only quality that stood out when I tested the well water, was the high PH, but again, that was just on the small tank, and not in the ponds. The only common items between all the ponds/tanks has been one bucket of feed, that I have had for most of the summer. I used it to hand feed the fish below the waterfall, which is where the problem started, and has been the worse at. I then used some on the new fish in the fresh small tank, and right away they started developing the same problem. Feed was then thrown away, so even the dogs could not get to it.
I am going to test the water in the area below my waterfall tonight to see if anything stands out. Maybe something got in there during the flood and started this problem, as it is where all the runoff goes before entering the main pond. Maybe the chemistry of the pond changed enough to stress the fish and allow the fungus to get started.
So maybe there is hope...
My wife will be happy if the solution is time, instead of money.
