Incredible - fish survived in my zone 3 puddle

16 years ago

I have a pond for a few years now, zone 3, that's 5 x 7 feet and 24 inches deep. The water level itself is more like 20 inches deep. Due to the winter climate and the relatively shallow depth of the pond, I bring the fish indoors and put them in a stock tank for winter.

Yesterday I am doing some spring cleaning of the pond. Probably late for most of you but this spring has been exceptionally cool and everything is behind schedule. I noticed something moving in the water. Upon closer inspection, it's two black goldfish. The largest is about 2 inches long. Obviously last fall when I was trying to catch all the fish to bring them indoors I missed a couple of babies born last year.

I find this amazing, since this is zone 3 and I always assumed that the pond freezes into a solid ice block. Obviously not this year. Furthermore, the pond was iced over from mid November to early April and it was a colder than normal winter.

I think two factors could possibly have helped. First, the pond is right beside a deck. Maybe the couple of feet of snow that got shoveled off the deck and onto the pond over winter insulated the ice and kept it from freezing all the way down?

Second, the pond is located about 4 feet from the house foundation (dug basement). Maybe the outer wall of the foundation provides some outward heat and keeps the soil and the ice in the pond from freezing so deep? It does seem to me, in spring that when the pond thaws it sort of thaws from the bottom first.

I guess having just two fish in the pond worked to it's advantage as well, since the pond wasn't overloaded with fish and there was enough oxygen for the winter.

Anyways, I just wanted to share with people who can appreciate this. Every year there seems to be something that amazes me with the pond. From my first frog a few years ago, to the first time my goldfish had babies, there's always something neat happening.

Glen

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Comments (5)

pikecoe
16 years ago
Glen, That is amazing. Thanks for sharing with us. I just can't imagine living in really cold weather. I enjoy having my pond the year round, even if I do have to spend more on fish food and work a little harder to keep it up all year. It's so exciting finding things especially baby fish you don't even know you have. Last year I found them in my bog filter and just could not figure out how they got there. Had to have been the eggs that got circulated up through a pump and a ton of pea gravel. Glenda
goodkarma_
16 years ago
Glen, what a great story! Wonder if those black goldies will change to orange.

Lisa
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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
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jalal
16 years ago
Hi Glen. Your pond must not have frozen to the bottom. I left a koi in my pond in the fall as couldn't find it. Pond is 4 ft deep in the deep end but the fish didn't make it through the winter. Yes this spring is cold! My settling chamber still has ice on it (I forgot to take the plywood cover off) and it's been below freezing the last few nights. Trees are budding out though and my water iris is growing like crazy. I'm going to try and get the pond going this weekend as we had a power outage last week and it blew the pump on my holding tank for the pond fish in the garage. So they currently have no filtration but I'm not feeding them and checking the water parameters daily. I think I should post a picture of the pond in "spring" before the plants get going. There is such a huge difference in the garden by the end of June.
glen3a
Original Author
16 years ago
One of the goldfish did seem a bit 'orangey' on his side, maybe that's a sign that he'll change color? I have black babies from a few years ago that are still black so I'm not holding my breath. That's okay, I figure black fish are less noticeable and still eat mosquito larvae in the water so good to have around.

Anyways, finding the fish babies was a surprise. In fact, I was doing a bigger water change than I would have had I known the fish were in there. Good thing I had dechlorinator on hand when I added the new water (I thought the pond was empty so didn't originally plan on adding dechorinator). The only down side is the new water that went into the pond was a bit colder than the old water, thus I was worried about the temperature shock I may have given the fish. Tonight I saw one of the babies swimming around and I now have a pump circulating the water.

Glen
sleeplessinftwayne
16 years ago
That makes me grin. Thank you. Sandy

Incredible - fish survived in my zone 3 puddle

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Incredible - fish survived in my zone 3 puddle

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