My pond was getting pretty low so Wednesday I turned on our pump to fill the pond with groundwater. In an effort to stop loading the pond with nutrients I have been running the water through polypipe the last couple months. But the polypipe can't keep up with the well so I also flooded two rows of pecans to get the water down to the pond at the end of the rows.

Thursday morning I turned the pump off and the pond was very full. I would say the pond went from 60 to 100% full by volume. The water has that tea colored look that happens when I flood the rows. I noticed fish at the top of the water that apppeared to be gulping for air. I also noticed CC in the shallows that I haven't seen in a year and crawdads were climbing on top of the fa to get out of the water. My first thought was I poisoned them with whatever turns the water tea colored from the pecans, I forget the name. My second thought was I cooled the pond too quickly by adding that much 65-70 degree water to a 80 degree pond.

This morning I have dead fish. It almost looks like they jumped out onto the bank but the racoons and birds could have done that last night, some are half eaten. CC, RES, BG, and LMB are dead. Right now there are probable 30 dead fish on the edges and thousands of BG are on top gulping for air.

I do not have a normal aerator but I do have one for my totes. Should I put that in? I hope I don't lose all my fish.

Can you circulate the water somehow, sounds like a DO sag since fish are piping at the surface.

I hope an expert comes along to help. It is a dissolved oxygen sag and not temperature shock.

I have 2 Honda wx10 1 inch water pumps for this situation. I use a t-post at waters edge, tie hose to it and splash surface in a couple spots. The "firemans nozzle works well with a 15' hose to pump.
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=h...sa%3DN%26um%3D1


good luck

I have some compressors on some of our service vehicles I could rig somehow to get air moving it. I can also get a water truck over there and suck water out of the pond and spray it back in. I'll check back in in 30 minutes or so. Thanks.

You need to agitate the surface as much as possible to pound some oxygen into the water. Circulation at this point won't help ~ once a fish kill has begun, there isn't much you can do to stop it.

sorry to hear this mt......if you didnt know it before, you will know it now, and that is that typical groundwater is depleted in oxygen. when you pump water directly from a well and deliver it to pond w/ no aeration in between you can suffocate yer fish if enough volume is mixed w/ the pond. sounds like you put alot in almost half the pond volume. one idea could be to run that well water down a say 25 to 50 foot rip rap path to the pond. this gives the water a turbulent oxygenating ride from the pipe to the pond. good luck down there.....

Well I have a small submersible pump in the shallow end leading to a garden hose and spraying water over the surface. I put my aerator suspended a 2' in 4' of water. I put a 3" pump pulling water from the irrigation canal and I am adding this to the pond, the canal water comes out of a lake about 15 miles from here. Then I have two water trucks sucking water out of the pond and using the side sprayers it is spraying it over the surface. I think that is about as good as I can do.

Probable a couple hundred fish dead now.

Thanks for the help.

Sorry to hear this Mtalley, please keep us posted.

If the well water ran down dirt rows for 100 ft it should not be devoid of O2. What was on the dirt (chemicals)? Tannic acid from the pecans ? What are your normal water chems (alkalinity) ect? Cold water if it was not tempered by the run down the rows could have killed your plankton bloom and caused a DO problem.

I would say about half the water was piped and half ran down 1/4 mile of rows. I have done both in the past with no issues but never the high percent of total pond volume that I did this time. I have flooded the rows at least 20 times since any chemicals/fertilizers would have been added but I haven't done it in about 4 months, I'm leaning towards the tanni acid over other chemicals. There are much fewer fish at the surface now so they are either dead or the DO is rising. I have pulled out about 60 dead fish, 95% are the largest from each species. I don't think many are floating and I can see some on the bottom out of reach of a net.

I am still spraying water over the surface with a water truck and we rigged the 3" water pump to do the same. I have a pondmaster AP40 that I amgoing to have running. Should I put the diffuser a couple feet off the bottom in the deepest area?

Thanks again for all the help.

I would start the diffuser shallow say 3 feet and move it down slowly. The main thing is to get one area/depth with plenty of O2 ASAP. Surface agitation as much as possible. The fish will move to that location.

Would the sudden influx of tannic acid by itself be enough to kill an algae bloom?

Depends on the amount and strength of the runoff and the pond alkalinity (buffering ability) and the DO content.

still sounds to me like the piped well water may be the real culprit.

OK, we have 72 dead fish collected, more I am sure on the bottom. BG to 9.5", LMB to 16", CC to 20" and 8 RES at 9" one at 9.5".

No more fish gulping for air and the crawdads are back down in the water. Noticed some small LMB acting normal in the shallows. I will put the aerator shallow over deeper water.

All I know about the alkalinity is that we have to soften the water before making oil emulsions with it at our emulsion plant.

sounds promising mt.

i came real close late last summer, and probably will again this year. thanks for sharing yer dilemma here, and i hope some of the great advice given up top helped you through.

it'd break my heart to see 9+ inch RES dead on shore not to mention the others, i'll toast to you and the survivors in just a bit.......its not quite cocktail hour...

we have real hard groundwater here, something like 25 grains. we need to soften to use it in house however i dont necessarily think the hardness is a problem for the fish, just the lack of O2.

mt, here's a toast for ya from el dorado (swiggin deeply....burp....another sip.....) good luck down there, keep us posted

Good news mt. May I suggest that you get both your well and pond water tested. It could reveal a chemical imbalance or give guidance to what you may need to avoid any problems.

Thanks guys.

More floaters this morning, but I expected that. Seem to be mostly bluegill. There are probable 30 more, not the hundreds I feared.

What kind of tests do I ask for ewest?

Well the dead fish keep coming up but they all look like they have been dead for a while. Just took out 53 more BG, 2 LMB,7 CC, 6 RES and a shiner that must have gone in with the FHM.

So far I have removed 20 dead CC of the 60 I planted last year, I don't think many of the made it.

A PH change can cause fish to want to leave the water.

mt here are a couple of examples of water and soil tests. Check with your Co-op ext service.

Thanks cecil for the additional info or correction I did not know that.

I'll get the both water samples tested.

No new fish floating today and the smaller BG have started eating the pellets again. I think I lost most of the fish I planted other than the BC. The good news is I think that they all spawned at least once except the CC.

The one thing that makes me wonder is only (1) 1" dead BC has been found. They didn't have the growth rate as the other fish so they were a little smaller, that may explain it.

My current plan is to replant 50 CC and 50 RES. Maybe add some more crawdads also.

Did I read that chanel catfish have a shorter life expectancy? I have had a heavy loss in my large catfish and I was thinking of the life expectancy. My reason for stating this is if it is true a person might desire to not have channel catfish. I lost 39 that were very large.

Deaner, I don't personally think any catfish has a short life expectancy. I have caught CC up to 25 pounds. They certainly didn't die young. Of course, a 25 lb CC is a rarity to catch. How big were yours?

They were in the neighborhood of 10 #. I had read recently that channel catfish had a shoprter life , but I must be wrong . I have lost 39 or 40 large ones and I am unable to find a good reason for them dieing.

Deaner did the CC look healthy ?

I think the vast majority of CC die within 8 years. However, there are genetic mutants who live 20 plus and they are the ones who attain the massive sizes of 30 plus pounds....

The cat fish that died looked good and with no markings on the ones I could look at closely. AS I stated I have lost about 40 and they are the biggest ones. In looking at the catfish as they feed these are smaller that are visible at the present.

I lost my last posting so if it shows up please delete. The catfish I lost had no marks on the ones I could check closely. In checking the fish eating they are smaller cats. Now yesterday I removed a large cat and one large bream that were dead. In all the fish I have lost there has been one or two bream and one nice sized bass. I have lots of bass unless something has gotten in the pond and eaten them.

During the time of my fish loss I continued to feed lightly and otherwise there was not any change such as rains. Nothing I could contribute this loss. This did not effect the bass, only loss, one bass as I recall.

Just a little update. There are still a ton of fish in the pond, but they are on the small side. A couple weeks after the fish kill the BG got back to spawning. The reason why I am posting is my son was casting a mini jig today and caught a very niced sized BG. I was worried I lost all the larger fish but this showed some survived. Also we replanted some CC yesterday, I just have to have some catfish in my pond.

A small update.

The pond is doing good, just not many large fish. BG continue to spawn in the shallows and there arefry everywhere. The BG that spawn last year continue to grow and feed heavily at the feeder.

Do to me being very lazy I still haven't tested the water. My hunch was that the water flowing down the orchard rows was the problem so now I only fill through the pipe. I just got done bringing the pond up a couple feet. This time I didn't do it all at once but over three days. All appears well.

FA is going to be an issue until I can afford an aeration system.

My other issue I may have to deal with is the balance between LMB and BG. There is a huge population of BG in the pond and many of them are too big for the surviving 6-8" LMB to eat. Over the next couple years I hope the LMB are able to grow and keep the BG in check. If not the pond is small enough that I should be able to get it in check.

Sounds like time to cull some BG Mt. Oh and not to bring up a sore subject but are you effected by the water rationing at all?

nice update mt, sounds like a BG cook-off is in order. is the pipe water from a well? and do you aerate it before it hits the pond? if not, its probably a good idea to do that.......have it splash into some rocks or something.

Jeff,
It is well water and as far as I know they don't ration that around here. We also still have water rights to the canal that borders our property. The farmers/communities about 45 minutes west of use are having a tough time. There are a lot of farms/jobs that have dried up because of politics over what little water they have.

Died,
Some air gets into the well water when it shoots out of the pump and into the standpipe but I am sure it could use some more. This winter I am going to replace the valve that leads to the pond with a larger one. That would be a good time to add a rip rap water fall of some sort.

Talk to you later guys.