Thanks for your kind replies. The good news is fishie is swimming upright this afternoon. I was hesitant to check him this morning (Schrodinger's fish syndrome: he's neither dead or alive until you actually look), but he was still hanging in there though still laying flat on his side. When accidentally agitated he would swim upright as yesterday. I have yet to do any water changes, last weekend was the first time I turned the hose back on! Its on my list for this weekend. I did scoop out all the leaves that made it thru the winter netting. Main filter pump is now on, a good bubbler was on all winter. I have 2 UV pump/filters going to kill the green stuff till it's plant time, they make plenty of circulation. So... I doubt O2 is an issue. Temps are in the mid 40's now. They have changed a lot, actually hit near 50 mid Feb as the bubbler air pump is inside a tote box and the sun warmed the box which pre-warmed the air it was pumping. Last summer I did an aggressive Praziquantel treatment per the goldfish board's suggestion (URL below), so hopefully parasites are also a non-issue. Now that he's doing better in warmth I'll need to set up something better until I can put him back in the pond. Its funny the work I will do to support a fish I bought 3 years ago for 27 cents! See, I initially bought "feeder fish" to start my pond and some are still around. Some are also quite striking! url=http://thegab.org/Illness-and-Treatment/commonly-used-medications.html

Lesliew There is some very good and very bad advise given here. First let me address the question of to clean or not to empty pond for cleaning. First I have seen no where that your pond has a bare liner anywhere, in fact you say you have a lot of gravel on the bottom. So I have to assume that the liner is covered with rock. If this is the case than you are building up debri in this rock that can not be removed by vacuuming. It normally can only be removed by emptying and pumping it out. Does this have to be removed? That depends on where you live and how you keep the pond in the winter. If you live somewhere the pond gets covered with ice than chances are that you will have a problem one winter. Can I tell you when this will happen? No that depends on a lot of different factors such as fish load, debri in pond, how a hole is kept in the ice, what state the debri in the pond is in, and how long the ice is on the pond. Is cleaning a pond hard on the pond? Yes but the killing of all the fish is harder on the owner. Do you need to add bacteria to the pond? This answer is going to start a lot of debate but here goes. If you have a pond that is covered in rock than you should add it as the manufacture suggests. If you live some where that you get ice on the pond than it becomes more important. Than it also depends on how good you are at keeping debri out of the pond. The main purpose of added bacteria is to break down debri in the pond smaller so that the bacteria that naturally occurs in the pond break it down to a point where it is not a problem. It does this far quicker than the bacteria in the pond can do it. The real problem comes from what type of bacteria in the pond is breaking this debri down. If the bacteria isn't getting any O2 than the bacteria that breaks the debri down produces some very nasty gases. These gases are what will kill the fish. Should I clean the pond with the fish in it? This depends on weather or not you have the bacteria that is producing these nasty gases and how fast you clean it. If you stir up this debri so that the gases are released faster than the pond can expell these gases thru the surface of the pond then the fish will be affected by these gases. Do I need a biological filter? Again this depends on several factors. Natural lakes and ponds don't have additional filters and they don't have problems. But that isn't quite true. Yes they do not have additional filters on them but nature keeps the fish load to what the body of water with the addition of fresh water can support. This is done by the amount of food that is available, concretations of natural chemicals that the fish put in the water gets high enough they stop reproducing and growing, and if all else fails fish kill offs. In the normal garden ponds these are controled. Fish are fed and water is changed so the fish load can quickly get higher than what the pond can support. Than what happens? Very simply you have fish die offs. I am sorry to be so windy but I waded into this thread not because of your situtation but because of other people that may read this thread and get some bad information. From what you have written you probably would not have a problem following the advise given on this thread but another ponder could have some very bad problems following it. Mike

Hi naal, aren't those beauties? They're 40 feet tall and eight feet wide. The biggest which I presume you're talking about. My favorite Thuja for screening! I'd guess that when the plants reach 10 feet tall they'll be pushing 3 feet of growth a year, literature will say 2-3 feet annual growth. Just super fantastic trees as solitary specimens as well. Maybe Dave is right! I thought otherwise though. I use stretchy green horticulture tape and if a stake is stiff plus sturdy, I'd tape at 3 or more places on each plant. Tie em tight"ish" but don't forget to cut the tape this coming year, mark your calendar if you think you may forget. Even though this tape stretches, it still has the potential for girdlling. Thanks for the Musser Information. Dax

Thanks you two for your words of encouragement. The mediterranean fan palm's two out of 4 pups survived but the rest was very brown and the spear was soggy and black. Since this was a specimen plant in the backyard I am not sure if I want to wait several years for new growth with a large stump as a reminder of the dreadful cold spell. I have attached a link of one of the windmill palms both show the same problem. If you go to the start of my Flickr photostream there is another photo too. Shows no spear (pulled out as light brown and dry) but can see the next frond lying over, third frond in background, happy and healthy. What do you think from these photos? I am over 6 ft so you can see how tall they are. Thanks again for your time. Looks like you 2 are in a colder zone than I am. Here is a link that might be useful: Flickr