Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations My first fish kill

I had a feeling it was coming because of all the excess plant life in the pond. But I can't say it was the only reason I found 16 HSB dead and floating over the past two days. Most were the larger HSB in the pond with some going up to 7 or 8 lbs. So here is what I think happened. First off about 70% of the pond has vegetation in it which I have been told will lower DO at night. I increased the aeration run time from 3 hrs to 4.5 hrs running it only during night and early morning and we had 3 days of heavy rains with most every morning till noon where it was cloudy. Looking back I wished I had not run the aeration at all and almost did not run it because of all the vegetation. I ran it with a very slow start up and the fish died when I increased the run times. The system had run for a week @ 3 hrs per night but when I increased run time to 4.5 hrs the fish died. I think it was a combination of low DO due to plants but when adding the diffusers run times to the Pond it brought up dead water reducing the DO even more and it also increased the water temps. One thing I noticed this summer is the water temps were much cooler than other summers due to shading from the plants. So. Plants, aeration and water temperature along several cloudy days killed of the fish. I have only found one dead lmb about two weeks ago, it was in the 4lb range. No CNBG or RES have been seen dead and or floating. This morning the fish were actively feeding. Highflyer and I had a conversation a few weeks back about the numbers of HSB in the pond. He thought I had too many per acre and I can't rule this out either. I continue to run the diffusers @ 4.5 hrs but no plans on increasing run times.

I would suggest that anyone who has Bushy Pondweed (Southern Naiad) you need to get rid of it as soon as you first see it in the pond. In my pond it is a very aggressive growing pondweed and grew so fast I did not realize how fast it can take over a pond. Seemed like it had taken over in just a couple of weeks. You can't kill it off in the summer because treatment can kill the fish so it's pretty much mechanical removal and I'm not so sure you can keep up with it's growth. you can kill it off in very early spring using a contact herbicide. And maybe treat it in late Nov or early Dec will see if that works. Ok, I'm through venting.