Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations help!!! fish kill just started

each evening i ride the gator to the pond to hand feed the bass. i am always met with a wave coming toward me. this evening not a single bass came. i rode to the dock where the auto feeder is mounted and i noticed it had just went off but feed was everywhere. my bg usually clean it up within 30 seconds. i knew something was wrong. i rode to the upper end of the pond and it looked like 1000 bg were crammed in to one small area. i have an electric pump that pulls water from a nearby stream. i use it for irrigation and to top off my pond during droughts. i immediately turned it on and put a fitting on it so it would blast a stream into the pond. the stream water feels like it is 20 degrees cooler than the pond. i also have two gasoline trash pumps. i ran and got them i started them pulling water from the pond and spraying it back in. all of this started right before dark. i have been watching the fish and it is amazing how quickly they come to the water being pumped in. so far i haven't seen a dead one and none are piping at the surface. they seem to be a couple inches below the surface. i have a very small stream feeding the pond, i just looked with a flash light and saw at least 12 lmb and no telling how many bg stuffed into the little area where the water enters the pond. i am going to attach a few photos of the pumps running, let me know if you think this will save them. the one shooting the small but powerful stream is electric, i can run it forever if it will help. the gasoline pumps are a difficult to keep fueled. the pond is almost 2 acres.
https://goo.gl/photos/R9L7w73dYBEB5GgH9
https://goo.gl/photos/C3deybJkWETicupYA

Scott,
I caught a fish kill just like that starting one morning this past June, and managed to only lose one 2 lb CC as far as I know. I pumped water from the stream all day with a 2" gas pump, then recirculated the next day, churning up the top as much as possible.

Since that event, I have removed over 92 pounds of CC averaging about three pounds each. No problems since. These low D.O. events start rapidly.

You may need to remove some biomass.

When you pump to recirculate, the intake should not be more than 2 to 3 feet down. I put my intake hose on a foam float.

Scott, if you have access to a boat and can get it in the water, set the motor at or around 45 degree angle and run the motor in gear. It will help to get some air into the water. I did this back when I thought the DO was low in my pond during the hot summer. Move it around the pond by placing the nose of the boat against the shore line and run the motor. Hope it all works out for you

daylight update:

all the fish were gone from the upper end. it was stacked full of bass late last night. i woke up about 5 this morning and i heard one of the pumps still running, it had ran out of gas by 7 (daylight). of course i am keeping the electric pump running. the shoreline was packed full of yoy bass and bluegill last night, they all seemed to be gone this morning. i did find to dead adult bg. i am hoping they were the 2 that got hung on the intake last night that.

Questions:
1. since the 2 were floating, would that mean if any other died they would float. or could there be lots of dead was on the bottom.

2. i can easily lower my pond level by opening the valve on the dry side. should i let some water out? i am assuming the bad water is still on the bottom and that is where the pipe draws from also. and i could reduce my surface area so the spraying water would be more concentrated????

3. since the pond isn't littered with dead fish this morning, did i survive the fish kill??

Not all dead fish float, and certainly not right away. Quick action on your part probably saved the day.

Now the question becomes what do you do to prevent that sick feeling in your stomach from happening again. This is the part where the realization that pond management is a package deal hits hard....growing larger numbers of bigger fish requires more than good genetics and great feed. It takes good water also. Cut down the biomass, add aeration, or both?? Something needs to change.

you are right sparkplug, what do i need to do is the big question. i think short term is to keep the water spraying in the pond. long term, not doubt i need to lower the fish population. it was unreal at how many small fish were around the shoreline last night. i guess because of it being summertime the fish have been deeper for the most part and i havent been able to see them. i was amazed at the number of 5-6" lmb. i guess since the pond is still kinda new is the reason everything has done so well so far. the bluegill are huge, the bass are huge, huge population-but now it all came to a head.

lowering the population is easier said than done. people seem to dang lazy now days to come catch a mess of fish and clean and eat them. most just wanna go fishing. or you have those that would abuse it and wanna come back daily and bring all their friends.

i have fought different vegetation on and off in this pond. i think next year i need to get an earlier start on it.

man this is a fun, but tough hobby..

Day not saved yet. I look for disease issues, especially those involving bacteria striking a couple days letter.

First photograph shows something that get me upset even before fish show stress. Water appears gray. Sudden change to gray with pond fed heavily has me checking D.O. in the evening and about midnight. That often allows heading off the D.O. getting low enough to cause real stress. Feed backed off if D.O. are low in mornings. They have a hard time putting feed towards growth when D.O. low and temperature high this time of year anyway.

Do you have electricity to the pond?

you are correct about the gray color. i have seen it before and a lot worse, but yes it surely has changed. always seems like a smell comes along with the color change. it did it real bad last year.

i do have electricity within 50 ft of the pond.

Keep the water moving and stop feeding for now. How is your alkalinity ?

When pushing a pond with feed like you are doing, I would be using supplemental aeration. Concentrate on keeping that pond bottom aerobic. If utility bill a major concern, then aeration need not be continuous. When trying to do minimal aeration, my preference is it turn it on late in evening to destratify water column. That will push oxygen rich water to bottom and get temperature uniform. The uniform temperature can set for further vertical mixing after aerator turned off as the water cools over night.

I suspect their are benefits other than simply tying up nutrients in the soil that help manage overall water quality and plankton bloooms.

ewest. i am not sure what the alkalinity is now. could you recommend a test kit? i had one earlier this season but didn't seem to work right. not long after, the test tube was broken. i limed the pond with appr. 5 tons this spring. that was about the time i was checking the alkalinity. it was really low or the test wasn't accurate.

that is the second time i limed. seems like i have had a hard time maintaining a bloom.

just to recap: my goal is growing huge bg. i feel comfortable i can achieve my goals, but my biggest challenge so far has been keeping the numbers down. i think my pond is real fish heavy. i do also enjoy seeing and catching the large lmb. i have a few that are unreal for their age. i think they are the ones that are taking the pellets. i still am amazed at the numbers that i saw last night. looked like 100's of yoy lmb in the 5 inch range.

centrachid=utility cost isn't an issue. i just would like to stay away from it if possible. i would rather have a lower/healthier population than "too" many fish. it is fun to see a 1000 bg hit the surface when the feeder goes off, but really we don't fish that often, and we have more than we can possibly eat.

My solution after the fish kill/near fish kill was to fish out a large number of CC and have catfish nearly every day for a month, then fish out as wanted. Remove some biomass and cut back on feeding is my suggestion.

best i can tell i lost 5 large bg. that's all i see floating. i know of three that got sucked up to the intake of the pump and were killed. hopefully 3 out of the 5 were from the pump injury. feeder is off for a while. i have the 4" valve open and lowering the pond. it is sucking the bad water off the bottom. i won't have time to lower it this evening much. i have to leave home about 3:30 and won't be back until dark. i am going to continue to pump fresh water in though.

If food is limiting fish biomass, and you add food, you've mitigated that limiting factor and increased biomass. Then something else can become limiting, in your case, biological oxygen demand. You might consider feeding less and harvesting more.

We don't feed or aerate and rely on selective harvest only. And honestly, at our place, the LMB we cull become compost for the veggie garden more often than they become filets. It's hard to get people we trust out to fish the pond, so when people are pulling out dinks, I don't really mind what they do with them as long as they don't go back in.

hatch makes an inexpensive total alkalinity test kit (last I checked about $50). There are much better kits at higher prices.

Solid alkalinities 50-150 help buffer many southern water problems and reduce stress. Basic water quality is a must.

exciting update!!!! i dropped the water level 4 or 5 inches today trying to get some of the bad water off the bottom (not sure if that helps or not) and kept the creek water blasting in and 1 of the trash pumps running. it sits on my dock and is churning a good bit of water. my feeder is off, but when i went to the dock i could see a few bg near it. i couldn't help myself, i tossed a handful of pellets in right where the discharge is blasting and the water came alive. my bg we ready to eat. man that was a great feeling. that goes to show how fast things can change. no fish at all in the upper end where the fresh water comes in. i guess they were really suffering last night. looks like i may have lost a dozen bg, but i have not seen 1 single dead lmb.

bocomo-i definitely have to harvest more!! i think once i do turn the feeder back on i will only feed once a day for a while. not sure how long to wait before i start it back up.

i am going on vacation for labor day. i hope to be able to drop the water level some more this coming week. i hate to leave that big ole 4" valve open while i leave for work. i am self employed (paving business) and anything can happen during the course of our work day, i sure would hate to get home and too much water be gone. i may leave the creek water pumping in there the entire time i am gone on vacation.

You could just get a fyke net to help with harvest. You could probably catch more fish with that than you ever will with a pole. Sort through them and throw back whatever you don't want to harvest.

I am not familiar with a fyke net so i google it. It looks like it would be a bunch of trouble. What about a traditional ole fish basket hanging off the end of the dock? reckon the bg would enter it?

Scott, try a cast net. They're pretty cheap and you can catch a lot of fish when the feeder goes off. I think they are about $30 here at Walmart. Watch a video on YouTube on how to use it and practice throwing it in the yard 4 or 5 times and you'll do fine. I use mine to cull young HBG because I want more regular BG. I can catch around a hundred fish tossing it into the feed boil 1 time and I don't often make perfect casts.