Thanks for the responses - I'll take some more pictures of them when they are more active. With the heat (its 96 right now) they are nestled at the bottom of the pond where its cooler. Anne - not a stupid question at all - they do have unusually long necks, much longer than sliders, painteds, cooters, and other species. These guys actually do range all the way to New York, but they don't go very far south Look at Interstate I-80 which goes across much of the country, most of their populations are restricted north of that highway. They are in your neighboring states to Kentucky, such as Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, but are found mostly bordering the Great Lakes.

The only thing I can think of that grows that deep is Kelp seaweed! LOL If the sides slope at all, they might be able to somehow anchor some varieties of water lilies at 3' or so? It seems like they should take root, but I don't have any experience with bentonite and I'm also not sure about how deep things need to be in your zone to prevent freezing. If the sides don't slope at all, I remember reading somewhere of "hanging" basets/planters using roping, etc. down into the water and anchoring them with stakes on the side. Wish I could find that link because I remember it contained sketches and photos. While I was looking for it I found this overgrow mat on a uk site. Has anyone ever heard of/tried these before? Looks like it might be a good alternative if you don't have planting shelves. Our farm pond is much smaller,only 7-8 ft at the deepest and with no lining-- just silty clay that sinks waaay down when you try to wade out into it. Last week I stuck some of my extra lilies down in the muck at about 2-3' depth and am waiting to see if they take off and grow or not. Just thought of one more idea-- why not just use Jenny's noodle/floating islands?! That should work in any depth :-) Sherry

It's all about oxygen levels and fish loads. Fish do sometimes die in some pretty large lakes, and often will survive just fine in small backyard ponds that are covered in ice all winter. As long as they have enough oxygen to breath they can often survive without a hole in the ice. Lots of people make the mistake of thinking these holes we try to keep in our ponds are just about letting "toxic gasses out", and that's really a misnomer. It' all about gas exchange, bad gasses (CO2, H2S, etc...) out, and oxygen (O2) in. If you have a small pond and a very light fish load, maybe one or two fish, then you, or rather, the fish might get away without a hole in the ice, because they might have enough dissolved oxygen in the water that they'll be able to survive any freezing period. The more you increase your fish load, the less chance they have of surviving as the oxygen demands will go up and there just wont be enough oxygen to go around. Here is a link that explains winter fish kill better than I can.

I think it's illegal to dump any fish in any pond or lake so I'm not exactly recommending that..... but they are native to most lakes in the US and will survive. But if they are domesticated and rely on humans to feed them, it could pose a survival issue. Maybe a private pond somewhere?