All my fish, well one, and my frogs survived the winter!

12 years ago

Did yours do ok?

The water in my pond never even froze on the coldest of days! I am in zone 5 in Mass and although we had a warmer than usual winter, there were many days subfreezing.

All i did was place 2x4's across the pond and lay a Solar Pool Cover on top to keep the cold out and allow solar radiation in, and it worked! It was like a mini greenhouse effect.

The temps in the water never got above the 40's, but never dipped below the 30's.

How did your living things fare? Did they survive?

Mike

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Comments (5)

koijoyii
12 years ago
Hi Mike:

My pond never froze over either. I, too, had a solar pond cover on mine which the wind blew off because it never had a chance to freeze to the surface of the pond. I did a walk around this week and scared five to six frogs in my top pond. When I cleaned my settlement pond last fall I had to put over 100 taddies in a pail till I was done. I got so tired of removing them I left about a foot of silt in the bottom of the pond. I may end up moving out so the frogs can stay. lol My fish are up and begging for food, but I haven't fed them yet. There is lots of algae for them to graze on right now. Oh yes, and there are the things you hoped wouldn't live though the winter: like the darn pennywort I put in the pond last year that took over the whole surface. It's sprouting from under the rocks surrounding the pond. I think I'm sorry I ever put it in the pond. It took me 3-4 hours to clear the surface of the pond last fall. I had to cut through the stuff with a hacksaw blade. All my marginals are growing and need to be divided. My whole top pond is covered in duckweed. My lotus plant that I overwintered in the house (which I thought had died) is now sprouting since I moved it outside. I have got my work cut out for me though. I have to totally rebuild my top pond due to erosion. But it looks like Spring has spring.

Ponders, start your pumps!!!!!!!!!!!

Jenny
pcan
12 years ago
This was my first winter with the pond. We never got below 10 F this year. I turned off my pump Dec 1st and put a cheap air stone in the pond. There were a few days in Late Dec, early Jan that the pond had a thin layer of ice over the surface everywhere except where the air stone was. The pond was completely thawed by the end of Jan. All my fish are doing swimmingly :) I have 13 large comets and at last count about 30 fry from last year. I rebuilt my falls last weekend , added two skippy filters and a second pump. Started the bad boys up and now I have beautiful clear water and my fishies are happy. The water temps is 60 F but we are going to get down to the 40's over the next few days so it will likely cool down a bit then back up to the 60's by Wed. The one thing I added to my pond last year I wish I wouldn't have were mosquito fish. I was told they wouldn't survive our winters so thought if I don't like them I wont get them again. Well guess what, I don't like them because they produce millions of mosquito fish a swarm my pond. And guess what, they survived our very mild winter :( Hopefully next year we will have a good cold snap that does away with them .
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Smurfishy
12 years ago
pcan, maybe you can advertise them on craigslist for free, maybe as feeders?
annedickinson
12 years ago
LOL Smurfishy, that's BAD!!!

Last fall I moved all my fish(except one that I couldn't find because it was black) to a friend's deeper pond.

My ice melted this week enough for me to pull out the chunks. There was that elusive fish, swimming around! Also a frog!! That was a surprise.

Got that pump going and added the Microb-lift. Ready for summer!
nelumbo
12 years ago
Hi!

I'm from waaaaaaaaaay different continent than you are - from Europe, and I guess you all know that we had a very awful winter. We had over -30 F!! And just today I measured our lake's (yes, lake, not pond) ice, and it was 1,5 feet thick!! It was like ...... REALLY?? But I hope my fishes, frogs and other natural stuff survived, I soo hope my lotuses survived. They were in 3 feet deep water :)

Greetings from Estonia, Europe
Tony

All my fish, well one, and my frogs survived the winter!

Comments (5)

koijoyii

pcan

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