Originally Posted By: teehjaeh57
Scott...visually, your water sure looks healthy, nice phytoplanton bloom rolling and I see no evidence of excess nutrients by way of FA...and your BG are some of the finest I've ever seen, and I've seen A LOT of BG nationwide on here, in person, on BigBluegill.com etc. This is the first episode of a fishery wide lethal event targeting seemingly robust and super healthy fish that I've ever witnessed, so it's been very educational for myself and likely everyone else. I am really sorry for your situation, but considering your ability to grow amazing BG fast, it probably couldn't happen to a better guy in that respect as you'll be back at it in no time. One question...are these CNBG? If so, do you think their lower tolerance to cold water could have something to do with their susceptibility to an infection? If they are CNBG, are you considering stocking NBG to perhaps hedge your bets in case you get another polar event in the coming years? Scientists say these weather/temp extremes will become more common...


tj- i took water samples to au university today so hopefully we will hear back soon. Here is kinda my guess what is happening. my pond is heavily stocked and fish are heavily fed. 2 years ago i noticed my fish didn't eat one afternoon, i got to looking and found all of them crowded in the upper end trying to get a sip of fresh water trickling in. i jumped into action and started 2 trash pumps to running and another pump that i can pull water from a nearby stream. i lost a few large bg that night, but not many. now this past summer 2018, i fertilized a few times but, didn't get a good bloom. not sure what month, but i used 30-0-0 fertilizer on my yard. a week or so later a large rain came and of course washed some in the pond. next thing you know the pond was scary green. sometime along in the summer i saw a few dead bg. i think oxygen probably got a little low. more than likely more died than i saw and got the water out of whack. i think since then it has been a snowball effect. more die and the ammonia has spiked more and more with each death. the fish are cnbg. at this point i am not sure if i will have to restock or not. i have a ton of little 1-2" bg around the shore. we are having a really warm week here so i began trying to feed a little. i see some 5-6" fish feeding, but not many. i think i have lost all of the adults, but my biggest hope is there are some left that just aren't showing themselves. possibly some too sick to eat, but might pull through. i am keeping my fingers crossed for that.

Scott Hanners