Finally got all the floaters out and cut back some rush and cattails. Since I used the netting around the perimeter of the pond to keep the snakes at bay, I've been having to go out daily to net any leaves that have fallen.

I caught one of the fish and brought him in. He was the one that got trapped in the ice last winter after the thaw and freeze. If I leave him in the pond for the winter, I know he will not make it and so, he's in a bucket right now waiting for the water to warm up to room temp and I'll be putting him in with the 8 babies who never got big enough to release. I think they are big enough that the big one can't eat them...I hope so anyway. He's such a beautiful fish, that I can't bear to lose him. Orange and white with a looonng flowing tail.

Good luck everyone for winter preps and winter weather.

Hi sabrillo
Yes I've got all my preperations done( weve been ready a good week) and the pond and filter house complete the double glazing we installed I hope will help with the temperature and on the pond itself we have two large sheets of poly carbonate sheeting with it'eslf is a form of double glazing .
Temperature out last night was only 7.c but when Val wnt out to feed the koi and check the temperature of the water we had a reading of 13.6c down on the 14.3c from my reading of the day before.
But you have to admit that less than a degree drop isnt that bad.
Your not the only one to bring your fish indoors this year.
I've been helping Elaine with her koi and goldfish and they are all now indoors but in a pond with a temperature of 9.c but she's snuck beind her DH back and upped the hermostat for his shop up to 10c lol
I wish you all good luck with your fish this winter, I have a strange feeling that this is going to be a long hard one.
So guys if you can get them indoors, if not somehow cover your ponds to take the worst off
rgrds
broxandval Fishiedude Flowersmile
PS any problems during the winter or in the spring with your fish pleae give Robyn or I a shout so that we may be of help to you :) .
Dave

Is that KoiKrazy? Did she bring ALL her fish indoors and why? As I recall, she has some rather large koi and I imagine with the depth of her pond, she has rather large goldfish as well.

Hi guys, I brought most of my plants inside last week when we had the really bad weather, we lost power for 52 hrs. & had a LOT of damage to our maple trees, we have been steadily cleaning up all the debris. I just started to take out some of the floaters today, hopefully I can clean the pumps this week also. I have still been feeding the fish off & on if the days are warm, not sure if that's ok since the water temp is a little below 50 F now & they are still active on these warm days 60's. I was thinking of covering part of the pond with a heavy duty clear plastic tarp, any thoughts on this?

I don't see why you can't cover your pond with a clear plastic tarp. You'd just have to ensure that your base or frame could withstand any snowfall that you may get.

I've seen blue and gray tarps, but never a clear one. Where do you get one and is it very thick? I saw a portable pool bubble wrap cover this summer and thought about getting it, but didn't.

I hope the loss of electricity wasn't too much of a bother. I hear people in Connecticut still is without power.

I've turned off the waterfall but still have the smaller pump running. I need to clean the filter out still.

Hi sabrillo/rosiemeadow
Yes it is KoiKrazy the reason the koi and goldfish are indoors is we disovered that the koi's gills were being effectively killed off all bar a little bit at the top of the head with the -24c, -54c temperatures that she suffers that far north.
Sadly in the spring/summer as the water heated up they didn't have enough gill left to support life and the suffercated .
This year she decided to bring them indoors for the first time ever which we have been helping her with and you know her she loves all her fish koi and goldfish alike so they have all been moved indoors .
I suggested bubble wrap because of the air pockets but your idea is a good one perhaps conbining the two will give you added protection ?
I got my bubble wrap sheeting from a garden centrebut whatever we do i has to keep the majority of the cold off the pond thats the important thing here
Today for the first time our day time temperature dipped bellow that of the pond by 1.5c which is good lagging your filters would be a good idea to.
you should stop feeding at 50.c especially our koi as they only have a gut no stomach like goldfish

rgrds
broxandval Fishiedude Flowersmile

sabrillo, I guess I should have been more clear, it isn't really a tarp just clear plastic sheeting, but I know you can get it very thick because my father used it in my garden a long time ago, he is no longer with us, so I have no idea where to find it. I just realized today that indeed it must be thick so it does not collapse from the snow this winter. I still haven't had a chance to get to the pumps & filter yet...way too much yard work!

Hi Rosiemeadow
It sounds to me like inustrial strenght plastic sheeting so your best bet would be a builders merchants you'll need enough to wrap the frame both sides to create a rudimentary double glazing around the frame that way trapping the air inside giving an area like in a double glazed window unit .
Or you could by polycarbonate sheets double or quadruple thickness which has the air pockets through out , this option would be better as it doesnt need a wooden frame and is what covers my pond.
You then have to store it away somewhere in the spring but it is expensive so your much better off buying it second hand as we did.

rgrds
broxandval Fishiedude Flowersmile

Hi Dave, I am going to get the heavy duty plastic, but since I have the high rocks around the pond, I think I am just going to bring the plastic over the pond & tuck it into the rock making a tent. I am not sure I want to cover the whole pond though, I was thinking of just doing half of the pond, but I am not sure if that would even help, thoughts?

Lay 2 x 4's then put your plastic on top of that. Or better yet, lay a long 2 x 4 from the bottom of one end to the top of the waterfall and let your plastic fall like a tent. Secure the bottom with your tucks and hopefully the snow will slide right off and you've got yourself a little greenhouse.

Wouldn't it be a waste of energy to just put it over half? Just wondering....

sabrillo, that was my thought also but how then would the gases escape if it is fully enclosed? Especially since I use a de-icer to keep a hole open when it is really cold.

This might be a question for Robyn or Brox...

but it is my understanding that the hole in the ice is to let the gasses escape the water and not be trapped under the ice with no where to go. With the greenhouse effect, you might not even get ice (wouldn't that be wonderful). I'd assume that every now and then you'd have to go out and check on them anyway, so there would be air exchange in the tent. I guess you could alway leave a section undone.

Yes, there would be less ice with the plastic tarps.
Yes, there should be an opening in the tarps to allow for some ventilation. It wouldn't have to be a lot. It's important that heat can escape on warm days. It's important that the bad gases coming out of the pond can escape and that fresh oxygen can come in. One way to help this would be to use an aerator and have the intake for that be outside the tarped area. It would be very hard to make an air tight seal around the pond anyway.

I'd use a frame and have it cover both sidesthen lay it over the whole pond .
The aim of he whole thing is to cover the pond during winter but at the same time allow air flow the aim being to delay or stop freezing altogether
With my own pond I'm trying to iliminate to much temperature loss in an experiment I'm carrying out this winter
Remember to do reglar waterchanges keeping an eye on cold water temperature from if it is lower than that of the pond then if you make up a"Y" connector from the hot and cold taps you can equalize tap and pond temperatures.
It is imposrtant that you do maintenance throughout the winter months.
rgrds
broxandval Fishiedude Flowersmile

So the big fish that I brought in had red streaks on his tail and I decided to give him marycn II. The little 8 babies are with him and I figured it wouldn't hurt them, but I started noticing that they were loosing their top fins as well as some of the bottom ones. The big fish also seems to have lost some of his tail. Anyway, I have been doing water changes to see if I can reverse some of the damage that I have done. They will grow back,..right?

So, you have one big goldfish and 8 small ones. How big is their indoor tank or is it a pond? Did you add some filter media from the main pond? Have you checked the ammonia? My basement pond has been set up for 1.5 months, and I still can't get the ammonia to drop even with pond media in there. I have to hand bail 8 or 10 buckets at a time. I do it only once a week now. I do use a hose though hooked to the well storage tank to refill to save more bucket hauling.

Anway, the septicemia (red streaking in the fins) and fin rot (fins falling apart) could be due to ammonia so check that out first. If the water quality is good, then I wouldn't expect those problems. What is the water temperature?

The fins will grow back unless the stiff support structures are removed. That usually won't happen with fin rot but from physical damage like another fish eating the fin off.

You can aid their recovery with the antibiotics as well as perhaps MelaFix and pond salt.
I hope they get better soon!

Hi sabrillo
Question for you did you equalize the water temperaturs before you but him indoors with all the little fry
You can get sacks of zeolite which will take the ammonia out of the water completely if you buy two large bags of tone sized zeolite you can the alternate them (but you cannot use salt in your pond if you use this), we have two sacks we rotate the sacks evey three months and you use salt to recharge them abou 3-6oz you (see salt releases all the ammonia which you dont want to do in the pond).
The red streaks are not neccessarily septicemia hence the question on temperature being matched it could very well be stress related and you fin damage could well be ammonia burns derpendant on how high a reading you have(septicemia would also be seen on the fishes bodyat the same time).
The other thing that it coul well be is Columnaris which I would say in reality it most likely is.
With this though it is a very hands on treatment i which you need to remove the parts of fin infected behind the acctaul rot, so you will need aneasthetic some very sharp sissors and the right treatmment to stop the spread not this new tea tree treatments but a good old fasioned chemical treatmemt involving Malachite and formalin, also some propolis spray to spary the cut away edges.
You desperately need to get the filtration working properly as the water will bcome more and more hassardous to your fish for this we recomend Microb-Lift PL filter pad innoculant Gel which is one of the best re-seeders of filters that I have ever come across.
As a matter of interest Koi Kreazy is doing the same as you but taking her through this she has had no problems apart from an egg bound subunkin , we have taken her through each step from the topping up of the vat to the mature barrel filter she brought in from outside
How many gallons is your indoor pond ? you need to take away 10-15% on a weekly basis match temperatures and a new water ,

Rgds
broxandval Fishiedude Flowersmile

The fish are in a clear 18 gallon tote. I do have a filter running and have had it running for months (lost many baby fish fry to it). I also have an air stone running as well.

I don't think it's columaras. The big one just had the red streaks in his tail and I thought septicemia as well, hence the marycn II.

I did turn the filter off for 2 or 3 days when high dosing the water with antibiotics so maybe ammonia burns sounds logical. I am doing water changes still. One baby seem to have lost his top and bottom fins completely. He is still swimming and eating though. The others seem to be recovering, but the big fish just sits at the bottom. He is upright though and every now and then swims to the surface for air then settles down to the bottom again. While he was in the pond, he did the same thing...mostly sitting but swimming only to gulp air. Just the bottom most part of his tail fin fell off.

I sure hope they recover. I do have a much larger tote that I've got some plants sitting in. Maybe I should use that instead.

And yes, I did let the pond fish's water warm to room temp before moving him into the container with the little fish.

Have you tested the ammonia? Do you have an ammonia test kit? If not, they cost less than $10. Get a liquid one. If you test the water, then none of us needs to guess if high ammonia is or is not a problem. How much water are you changing? With that size plastic container, you can do 50% at a time if it needs it.

Hi sabrillo
Whatever your treating a fish with it's in advisable to switch off the filter whilst treating you should always keep it going , this may account for your high ammonia but a fishes tail does not fall off just like that.
Columnaris is looking more and more of an answer to your ill's it's the only one that firs hat we are seeing .
The 18 gallon tote sounds the wrong size for what you are wanting to do for the winter have you got anything a 100 gallons or more larger .
YOu really have to get to grips with this one rapidly otherwise I can see a lot of casualties from this

rgrds
broxandval Fishiedude Flowersmile

Hi All!!!!

Been a long time since I have posted. I will try and get on here more often to help out if I can with winter ponds, I have a bit more time in the winter to post. I also have a new job with set hours which also gives me more time. As BronxandVal posted, yes I have all my fish indoors this year. So far everything is going super great for the fish. I have a 300 gallon stock tank and am running one of my 55 gallon barrel filters from the main pond. I have an aerator running and a net covering the whole pond. Over the pond I have a sun shade shelter set up and over that I have a layer of thick clear plastic to cover the whole area. This was done to help keep the moisture out of the shop cause my husband will freak out if things start to rust in there! I now have the shop temp set to 10C, we have overhead heat so this is pushed down over the pond and warms up the shelter nicely. I have an overhead light set on a timer so the light comes on everyday at 6am and off at 8pm. Currently the pond water is 11C and I feed the fish every second day. I did a water change yesterday as our outdoor temp went from -29C to -5C so I was brave enough to get out three coils of garden hose and pack warm water from the house, overall it worked out well and the fish were very active. All I do to clean the filter is to take out the top layer of quilt batting I have in the top 8" of the pond filter and clean the prefilter on the pump. I think the filter should be able to go till Spring without a major clean. Thats about it!

She's alive! And her fishies too! :D

Hi Koikrazy
Really nice to see you back and I'm glad to hear everything is working out , my it got cold quick -29c ouch the 10.c that your babies are in sounds much better, we are in the middle of some severe wrather here that has seen me rush out to batten down the hatches with extra weights on the polycarbonate sheets.
Weve had torrential rain and winds up to 76 mph across the UK with flooding and tre's down in some areas.
So far our double glazed idea seems to be working we are 3.c higher than the air temperature and held it at 14.7c when the night tme temp fell away to 3.c

rgrds
Broxandval Fishiedude Flowersmile

Update

I moved my big fish into a smaller tank about 2 weeks ago so I could medicate better and not bother the babies. I change his water frequently since I just have an air stone in there, and ran out of Maracyn 2, so I started reading the info on the Jungle Fungus clear, and since it said "septicemia", I decided to give that a go. The red streaks in his tail fin got better, the funus looking growth where his tail fins fell off also looked better. He's eating and does seem better. I'll move him back in with the babies in a few days.

Hi Sabrillo
I still doubt very much that your fish had septicemia the original diognosis of Culumnaris.
Strong antibiotics are needed to help rid a fish of septicemia which you havent adminsterd
rgrds
broxandval Fishiedude Flowersmile

Isn't septicemia easier to treat than columnaris? Last year, after much research and guessing (no microscope here), I treated a shubunkin for what I thought was columnaris ... did the whole salt bath, meds, salt bath, meds and he recovered nicely. This time around, with more research and guessing, septicemia seems more likely. The meds I gave him was antibiotics, and a heavy dose initially, hence I believe the baby fishes fins started looking funny (BTW, they are doing well since I moved the big fish out of there and removed the meds). Anyway, I try to keep them all healthy as best I can, when I know something is up.

I haven't seen the fish in the pond for quite awhile now as the pond is frozen. The filter I keep running has been keeping an area open, although I have had to go out with the ax a few mornings to cut thru the ice. I should just put the deicer in there...if I can remember where I put it. It's brand new still, bought a few years ago after the first one worked only when it wanted to. I just keep my eye on the hole every morning.

Hi sabrillo
Ouch you should never use an axe on your pond the shockwaves of hacking through the ice could kill any fish in your pond.
The reasons behind my not thinking it was septiceima is it would also have spread to the body of your fish not just the tail area hence Culumnaris.
This diagnoses made because of what was happening to the tail and fins in that they had rotted and hadred streaks through .
Like your good self I did research my diagnoses prior to letting you know what was causing the tail to disapear like that.
The streaking in the tail would come about through the distress of the fish with the high ammonia readings remember they are very hardy fish but will show stress when the water cnditions aren't right , it's one of the tells that says look to your water conditions first .
You have to learn to read your fish as to what is happening as you have said all the little fish are doing well since you removed the big fish and the meds .
It stands to reason that larger the fish the greater the amount of ammonia it will produce .
If your filter wasnt mature it could have overwelmed the filter .
I did an small article on another site a koi site that I have been running for over a year now which I shall copy off and print here for you to read if thats fine by you?

rgrds

broxandval Fishiedude Flowersmile

Hi Sabrillo
The article is as follows :-

Learn to Read Your koi

When it comes to your koi one of the best tools in the looking after them are your eyes,they are the first line of defence when it comes to noticing problems in you pond.
Ater a few years you start to develope the skill of reading your koi it takes a while but you pick it up bit by bit.
You will notice if your koi seems off or is swimming oddly perhaps its just sitting on the bottom or is flashing,
I've even seen a koi lying on its side with what turned out to be gill flukes,so all could be an indicator to a Parasite infection and a scrape will be necessary to determine which parasite it has and as to what you treat the koi with.
Jumping may or may not indicate a problem sometimes they jump just to see where they are.
Redness indicates a stressor test your water perameters if they are found wanting them a water change is a must.
Ulcers are an indictor of bad water, dropsy could well indicate an internal bacterial or viral problem,popeye is another indicator of bad water plus other problems.
Gaspng at the surface could mean a lack of oxygen in the water act to correct it.
There is a little know thing that koi do that I read about on our sister sit K4U and that is gulping they are unsure why koi do this so I cant comment further.
If you have done all of the above no parasites are found then we must turn to look at enviroment
Is there anything leaching into the pond from the garden i;e fertilizer or weed killer.
Cement has been known to leach into a pond effecting your PH, burns can appear around the mouth tails and fins
What plants do you have near the pond , is it poisonous you'll find a list of fauna on this site so you can check this out if the plant is poisonous then remove it.
Be aware you wont go wrong remember the koi will tell you the problem you have to develope the skills to read

Dave


hope this helped you some sabrillo

rgrds

broxandval

Thank you for the article Dave. I think as fish keepers we all know our fish and that is why I know when to bring them in. I look for odd behavior as well and I will say that I've lost most of my fish over the last few years to predators as I've always brought and treated any fish that is not behaving as they should, unless of course they died during the winter sometime where I can't see or get to them.

Yeah, I know about the ax thing, but I only cut through thin ice where the pump keeps the hole open. The filter had also been running since spring and I did turn it off during the heavy dosing of meds, but it might have killed the good bacteria anyway.

Discussing the difference between columnarius and septicemia further, if you don't mind...the best description I've taken to heart regarding columnarius is that it starts as a sore and grows like a column, grows upward (as well as spreads) which is what the shubunkin's sores looked like. It had "spikes" if you know what I mean. Then fungus cottony stuff started growing on top of that. It was tough to treat, but he did get cured. I felt especially unsure of the strong salt bath to remove any protective mucus before putting him back in with his meds. Thankfully though, it all worked out.

Septicemia is just red streaking either thru the fins or body. No sores. That is my understanding of them both. And that is all this fish had was the streaking in his tail and fins. He has never been right since he was caught under the ice last spring. Of course, no disease will always be textbook description and unless you can do a scraping (which many of us cannot), it is often just an educated guess looking at the different symptoms. Like I say, I research, I treat and treat until they get better or die.

Hi sabrillo thanx for the compliment
scraping is a relitively easy affair and you can buy a cheap microscope USB connetion if you shop around, here they are sold quite often in the Lidl store chain cost £59.00 and is x400.
To scrape lay a credit card type card at an angle against the skin of the koi/goldfish gently scrape in the direction of the tail from just behind the gills.
You dont have to even anaethatise the fish, and to prepare a slide is very easy.
Even healhy fish have the odd parasite on them just waiting to attack your fish if it gets tto a weaknd state.
You can make still photo's or video any parasites you come across , it's a whole new world of fish keeping I promise you that.
Septisemea is a reddening of the skin of the koi when this happens you are in big trouble and need to remove the fish from your others, treatment is by injection of antibiotics, either just in front of the vent or joints of the pectorals it is kmow as IM injecting , the IP form of injection goes into the body cavity and I recomend a vet does this for you.
The reddening of the fins is because of infection i;e the red streaking , a uniform redening is because it is reacting to something in its enviroment i;e ammonia, high or low PH etc


rgrds

broxandval.
Fishiedude Flowersmile

Well yesterdayI moved the big fish back into the tote with the babies and I haven't seen him this active since last year. He's no longer sitting at the bottom. He's in constant motion now, swimming, eating. I'm not sure he is totally out of the woods yet, but I'll be keeping a watchful eye on him. I'm hoping he'll make a good recovery and make it back into the pond in the spring. I'm very pleased :D

Hi sabrillo
Glad that that is sorted I still say it was columnaris, best of luck with him we hope he lives a long and happy life in your pond
As I explained in my last post scrapes and microscopes of x400 will help you with your fish sp perhaps one from your DH for Christmas :D


rgds
broxandval Fishiedude Flowersmile

I'm glad he's better!