Cold water fish wanted

[slmguy]

Hello

 

I am on the look out for fish for a pond I have created for a new children's home. The fish would be part of a communal garden so the children can take on responsibility of looking after them.

 

Any donations would be great or we may be able to acquire some at a small cost.

 

We can collect. Contact me on here.

 

Thanks for reading!

Edited March 2, 2015 by slmguy

[Chez2]

Is it still a bit early for stocking an outdoor pond with fish?

[slmguy]

I'm asking if someone has any unwanted fish that would have been in an existing outdoor pond. They will have been in the temperatures already, in their current habitat.

 

My local fishery has said that this would be fine as temperatures are above freezing now although I don't know why you are questioning me? Do you have experience in this or any fish to relocate? If not then please don't get involved.

[Chez2]

Are you always so rude? You just shot yourself in the foot. Your response says you don't understand the issues involved so please don't snap at someone who was offering to help, I wasn't rude to you.

 

Do I have experience? Twelve years working as a water Chemist and Microbiologist, sampling rivers to look at their health by monitoring fish and invertibrates, testing water quality in the lab etc, etc. I have also kept wildlife ponds right through to the 20 ft x 10 ft x 5 foot deep pond we have had for the last fourteen years. Our fish breed and we have to reduce numbers every so often. We haven't any at the moment but the females are looking like they are about to spawn, they are as round as barrels. We give the young fish away rather than sell them as they have interbred, no pure breeds, no fancy expensive colours.

 

Your fisherman friend is wrong. Look up winter stratification in ponds. The warm water layer is at the bottom, cooler layer on top. The water layers start to mix in spring as they warm up. By moving fish now you will put them through thermal shock. In spring or summer you can let them adjust to water temperature by floating them on the surface until the bag they are in gets to the same temperature as their new pond, you can't do that now. Our pond is five foot deep and you can see the fish almost motionless in the warmer bottom water. They aren't even bothered about coming to the top to eat low protein autumn/winter food yet.

[MARY POPPINS]

Very good advise from someone who knows, Ive got two ponds one which has quite a lot of baby fish, that I may have been willing to give you but you obviously don't realy know how to look after them, maybe ask again when the weather is warmer.

[slmguy]

I apologise as I didn't mean to be rude! I was told by a couple of people on the best time to move them and they both gave me the March 1st date as this was apparently the start of spring.

 

I read your initial message as someone questioning me as if I was being blamed for asking and after all I'm just trying to help my local community with this ongoing project that they had. The children are eagerly awaiting the opening of the new area.

 

I am sorry that I was misinformed and that I came across rude as this wasn't my intention. I was just wanting to know if you had any experience or if you were just questioning, like people do on this forum, winding people up and getting involved wrongly. I'm learning everything I know from research and by renting books from the library. I've never done this before you see.

 

When would you recommend me stocking up on them as we are moving into spring now.

 

I appreciate all the advise I can get, so thank you to yourself and Mary Poppins.

[Chez2]

Apology accepted. I was trying to make you think rather than dictating to you, hence the question.

 

How deep is the pond you have built?

 

In spring the sun starts to heat pond water (surface) and the layers of water at different temperature start to mix. As the water warms fish activity should increase. I wouldn't want to move fish until they show a reasonable amount of activity. It depends on the size of the pond and how typical the weather is for the time of year. As a rough guide I would prefer to leave it another month.

 

I would also want them to be surfacing for food before taking them out of a pond. I feed mine low protein winter food until about May. I suppose you know to tell the kids this? Use floating food. Feed just enough so they eat it in five minutes. Anything that remains on the surface needs scooping off and throwing away. In autumn put them back on low protein food as the temperature drops. If not, the food decomposes inside the fish and it kills them.

[slmguy]

Hiya,

 

Yes I have read about the fish feeding process and they mention what you state here. I've read that this is one of the main causes of death during winter - feeding high protein food and leaving it in the pond. Thanks for this information.

 

The pond size is a 10 ft x 8 ft. Depth is varying on levels but goes from 2 ft around edge to 8ft in middle. I also have a uv filter to keep the bacteria down and another one that filters out other general muck and surface slime. Is this ok?

 

Also, what real life plant would you recommend as I've read about lots so I was still toying with water lillies, any good? I've got oxygenating plant in the water too!

 

I would love to find out lots from you regarding this as I want the best for these kids as that's why I'm information seeking all the time.

 

Thanks once again!

[Chez2]

The pond sounds big enough and deep enough to stop fish freezing in winter.

 

The UV filter is intended to kill algae, not bacteria. It needs a new bulb each spring. The filter media should be a 'home' to bacteria and invertebrates which will eat the fish waste to clean the water. Gross solids will be taken out by the filter too. We test our water with water test strips.

 

You should aim to cover a third of the surface of the pond with vegetation to stop too much sunlight getting to the water. This slows down algae growth and give fish some shade. Our fish eat our greenery at an alarming rate to we have drain pipes weighted to the bottom for the fish to hide in. We also shade some of ours with suns screen netting. We have a few plants in floating polystyrene planters but we have given up trying to keep anything in the pond.

 

We have a wire fence on top of the raised pond wall to stop our dogs (or kids) getting in and it was supposed to stop Herons landing and fishing. We had a Heron that wasn't deterred. It took my Sturgeon and introduced disease into the pond. A plastic Heron, moved on a regular basis might deter another Heron.

 

You might want to consider an airstone. Warmer water holds less dissolved oxygen than cold water. Low pressure also causes less oxygen to dissolve in the water. One year we lost a lot of very large fish when we didn't turn the airstone on early enough. We had a thunder storm and warm (not hot) weather. This cause the dissolved oxygen level to drop and our large fish died.

 

Don't be tempted to overstock the pond or keep topping up with tap water if you get algae problems.

 

Enjoy your pond!

[slmguy]

This is fantastic advice!

 

I have ordered a heron and an air stone to support my pond.

 

When or how long would you recommend running the air stones for? 12 hours or all the time? All year or just in summer / spring?

 

Once again, thanks for everything!