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Ponds & Aquatic Plants

putting fish and plants away for winter

16 years ago

We live in zone 4 and my ponds freeze completely, in winter. I'm planning on putting my plants (water lilies) and koi fish, in our garage, for the winter, in a large livestock tank. We keep it heated just above freezing. Do I need to keep lights on the water lilies? Would I need to put a bubbler in there for oxygen for the fish, or will the plants, be enough? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks halley

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Comments (3)

kalevi
16 years ago
If the plants are under weak light, they will not be producing any oxygen so a bubbler and/or some kind of filter is needed. How many fish and how large is your tank? You probably need a filter even though the fish will be more or less dormant.

The waterlilies will be dormant at near freezing so they do not need a light. The fish probably like a little bit of light so something to allow them to see would probably be good.
lefd05
16 years ago
A number of my hard lilies overwintered in my garage in a stock tank last winter. They didn't have much light at all.
By spring I nearly lost them all as they had started to rot. I had to pull them all out and salvage what good parts of the tubers were left. I don't know if it was due to the lack of light or something else but I feel like it was probably the lack of light more then anything.
I would try to get as much light to them as you can.
I'm also doing an experiment this winter. When I split some of my hardy lilies this fall, I used some of the extra pieces of tubers and I'm trying to see if they will overwinter in bags of sand like the tropicals.
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Are you using a pump to circulate the water and give it fresh oxygen? You might get away with not using one if you have lots of plants growing in the water.......but I'm sure you didn't in winter. Did you leave a lot of rotting stuff in the water? I have just a 300 gallon pond (inground) and last spring I pulled out 8 dead frogs. :( I don't have fish....just frogs and plants. How big is your pool? Sometimes frogs die if the weather is inconsistent........warmish, then very cold, then warm, then cold. Maybe that's what happened to your fish. But if you're not recirculating the water, or have too much gunk or too many fish, any of those factors may have caused their death. I have always heard you need a hole to let out the bad gases.
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pamritchie
16 years ago
I Live In zone 6 and have never taken the fish or the hardy lillies out of the ponds in the winter. I Drop the lillies in the deep part of the pond around the first of Dec. they do quite nicely. in the spring I repot and place in the plant shelf.

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