Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - Pond is crashing.

I got on my pond to ice fish it for the first time yesterday and noticed something was seriously wrong. In the few clear spots I could see through the ice, I saw dead or dying fish. I punched a bunch more holes and noticed really small fish hanging out by them.

Today I broke out the oxygen test kit. It was terrible.


Grabbed a trash pump and my back hoe. Broke a bunch of ice with the hoe.


Cut some holes with my auger and got the trash pump working. It started melting the ice faster than expected. I figure at this point, the more water I can expose to air, the better.


I had a pretty good hole by the time I had to quit.


Background. Old pond. Had a partial winter kill last year, but had a long, heavy snow winter. This year has been mild, some of the ice still isn’t safe. Had water running into the pond off the hay meadows on the warm days. Still water coming out, so I didn’t think I had anything to worry about this year. I was wrong.

Questions. Is there anything else I can be doing? Should I focus my pump aeration efforts in one area, or move it around? Should it be in shallow or deep water?

Thanks for any advice. I’m going to get an aerator installed before next winter, but I had to pay for my daughter’s wedding this year, so funding was a little short.

I walked all the way around both ponds (the temperature being above freezing for a change) and noted that they have finally refilled after several months of being as far as 2 feet low.

These two rules apply to just about every fish kill:
1. There are more fish dead than what you can see
2. There are more fish left alive than you believe

I really can’t get an idea of how many fish died, because the eagles ate them before all the ice was gone. I know it was enough to feed 5 eagles and a bunch of ravens for 2 weeks.

I hope I’m wrong that they are all dead, but the herons and mergansers don’t think there are any fish left, either. They are all hitting my other ponds, where I am seeing a lot of fish.

Where it is sad that a bunch of fish have died, starting over will take time, but will be an interesting journey.

Update: Better news. By mid summer I started seeing a few small fish. Rule 2. Fatheads got off a spawn, their numbers increased greatly. Same with the crawdads. They were everywhere. I’d liked to have seen more bluegill, but they are harder to see than the bass. No activity on any of the historic spawning beds, so just the smallest fish survived. I won’t have to start from scratch, but the reset will be fun to watch. In the market for aeration now to hopefully prevent winter kill going forward.