Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Muddy water Winter Kill?

I spent all winter working away from home and, therefore, completely neglected my pond.

Concerned about my fish, I wandered out back to take a look this afternoon. As I walked around the frozen surface, near a melting shoreline I found one of my green sunfish on its side just beyond the ice.

I picked it up and found that, though lethargic, it was not dead.

After that, I proceeded to stomp around the shoreline and break through the 6" ice and try to create some opportunity for sunlight and oxygen to get in there. As a side note, as I broke through and sank up to my male thermometer, I noticed some bright green ?algae? on my boots...

So here are my questions:

*Was that sunfish just the victim of trapping itself as it somehow swam past the ice to the thawed edge?

*And was the fish doing so because it was oxygen starved?

*Are big fish or little fish more likely to struggle from oxygen deprivation?

*Was I really helping anything to get those edges broken up to create some opportunity for air/sun?

Thanks.

Hmmmm... methinks this thread is in the wrong section of the forum...

Breaking up the Ice was a good thing yet it may be too late and over deeper water is better if there is an oxygen depletion issue.

No telling how or why the fish got to where you found it.

Big fish and sick fish will suffocate before smaller fish simply because they need a higher volume of oxygen to survive.

Thre are many cold water algae species...these are what produce most of your oxygen when thhe pond is iced over and why it is so important to keep snow off the ice to allow more sunlight penetration/oxygen production.

Yep, wrong section, but it still gets noticed....lol

I went out first thing this morning to see if there would be any more floaters. I saw no fish... so far.

I broke up the ice at the shallow end on the east side and then again on the southwest side at the shoreline closest to my deep pocket.

Then I began fishing out the chunks of ice until I fell in up to my belt line. At that point I decided it was time to go indoors for a while.

Yea...those fish don't mean as much when the "beltline " gets as cold as the fish are!!!

IF you have snow on the ice still, can you pump water on top of the ice to melt it? If there is no snow, few floaters and you have bright green algae, you are probably producing enough oxygen for the fish to survive...at least during sunny weather.

Here's something I'm wondering about: when you get a fish kill, do they all float? Or is it possible that I could have a fish kill where they're on the bottom, dead, and I don't realize it?

They definitely do not all float! I complete fish kill is very rare and given the GSF size you found, and that it was alive, it's unlikely you had a major kill. Besides any dead fish will probably improve the fishery over the long run and normally happens in overpopulated or shallow ponds.