Kasha Kat is totally right on with their response. Nitrates/Nitrites and Ammonia readings are all related to each other. Definitely check your Nitrates/Nitrites and Ammonia levels. Ammonia is released from from debris, fish waste and the gills from your fish - If you fish are coming and going through dormancy, then there will be increased use of the gills on your fish. Hence the increase in ammonia output. Ammonia will also affect the oxygen levels in your pond. Which is why your fish acting like they are not getting enough oxygen, because in reality they are not. The ammonia level has taken the oxygen out of the pond. Another thing about ammonia levels - your ph will affect the levels of ammonia in your pond. So a reading of .2 on your test indicators is pushed higher by the higher ph in your pond. This time of year is difficult, however, there are some microbe lift products that will work in cold water and the microbe lift will unlock the ammonia and release the oxygen levels in your pond almost immediately. I was very surprised to see how quickly this happened in my own pond. The microbe lift product that I used was the Spring/Summer clean up - I am not sure that would be the correct one to use for winter. The people at microbe lift are very helpful. Their # 1-800-809-7102. It will cost nothing to call and talk with them. I do believe it was mentioned here before - you want your ammonia levels at 0. This is critical as the elevated ammonia levels will kill your fish and I believe this is already happening in your pond. One other thing - somebody mentioned not feeding your fish - I am assuming when we have the freezes and thaws that you are not feeding your fish. You are in Southern Ohio, which is zone 5-6, which is about the zone I am in. I would think typically your start up would be Marchish with feeding starting when your water temps are consistently in the 50's, so that would be April/May, depending upon how early or late Spring occurs. Not sure if you can access my pond journals as I am typically on DG and that is where my journals are. But if you can, you will see in 2007 is where I had these problems although my problems occured in April. Good luck. Here is a link that might be useful: Microbe-Lift

I had three 3-gallon pots of lupine sitting on a patio table on my breezeway. Yesterday when I heard how cold it was going to get, I lugged them, frozen solid, inside my unheated garage and set them down in an empty storage bin. It's probably not much warmer inside the garage but at least this way they're out of the wind. There are more winter sown perennials in pots on the patio table but no more room in the garage. Hope they come through this cold but will not be surprised if I lose several.

The only good thing about my area is that if we had had one more week or warmth, we would of lost all our perennial shrub flowers, fruit, and perennial...Now they will be buried under two feet of snow for the next week and then ity will just all of a sudden heat up to records high's and everything will bloom at once..Let's just hope we don't get stuck with Arctic Fronts in April and May too or we will be screwed..My poor trees are just dying to go outside...Ugh.. Laura, my Honeysuckle have been pushing out leaves too. But thank God nothing else..It seems they are one of the most hardiest, even if they leaf out...Can't live without my about 6 Honeysuckle vines..Ha

Most of us over the age of 65 have never had to worry about what we served when entertaining except for shellfish - perhaps a severe peanut allergy but I only know one man with this. He simply never eats anything prepared in anyone's home as he knows they probably have used peanuts or peanut butter in their mixing bowls/skillets. I usually just dealt with the shellfish by never serving it unless I absolutely knew my friends ate it. But when we were younger and had and went to lots of dinner parties, no one was on any "special diet" - no gluten-free (not sure anyone had even heard of gluten outside a home ec class!), no paleo, no Mediterranean, no vegans or vegetarian. When I was married 40 years ago, my matron of honor did not eat red meat at the rehearsal dinner, but she found plenty of other things on her plate and did not go hungry. I think she was the first person I knew who didn't eat red meat. If one has never learned to cook for such diets, it's pretty hard to learn, especially when entertaining. I never serve a recipe I have not prepared multiple times before. At my age, just preparing a meal for others is not easy and trying to figure out what is "allowed" is frankly just more than I am up to doing. I wonder how we all survived all those dinner parties in the past. Have people's bodies really changed that much? I don't remember anyone ever becoming ill and we all knew one another pretty wells.