General Chat

Some good tips on here. Thanks.

Ive always poured hot water round *just *on the edge of my 3 ponds ,,,,,,,I turn off the large UVA filter pump in winter and change to a small uva filter pump in and leave on a trickle 24hours ..a pump costs little to run..

if there is dead leaves and dead plant waste in a iced over stll pond gases can build up and kill off fish,so a pre winter clean is good and net down if near trees...

I have Koi thats 20year old,

The murky ponds will clear up in the winter. Some of the problem is overfeeding the fish, they are greedy and wont tell you they have had sufficient. Our pond cleared up quickly this summer once the fish were gone and there was no food going in the pond. Fish will pick at the algae on the sides of the pond when hungry. Dont forget, fish in the wild feed themselve from what they can find!

My daughter has a pond, last year after the winter she decided to give it a bit if a clearuot, thought that all the goldfish had been "Heronised"

but lo and behold ONE small survivor, who now lives indoors in a smallish aquarium with a new fancy companion, along with a few mussels?

Bob

yep they WILL survive a frozen pond by living in the muck stuff at the bottom of your pond......

along with a couple of frogs

Wend if you do not keep it on during winter at least keep it on 24 hrs during summer especially of warm weather otherwise you will see in the morning fish gasping for air.

We only have one of those fibre glass ponds so if yoy leave the pump on and it freezes then the water pumps out. Did it one year and came down to find very little water in the pond and the fish literally floundering !!. we do have a large flat stone that overlaps the pond and this allows the water not to freeze under it so the air can still circulate .

Wend, Try and get a "Solar Pump" **M**.

Try Either Barley Straw in a Ball,or Tetra Pond AlgoRem, do what it says and it works. **M**.

I used to keep my pump on all year round, until I was told that they use quite a lot of electricity. Don't know if this is true, but our bills were rather high, so I turned it off last winter and just have it on during the day in the summer. I would prefer to leave it on in the winter, because it stops the pond icing up.

don't add hot water to pond please. place saucepan with boiling water in it, this will melt the ice and you can put a ball in it although sometimes this ices up too. We just every day use the saucepan in same spot. Been doing this for over 20 years. If you have a pump keep it going all year. If water murky - perhaps pump is not large enough for pond. We too have mixed fish including Koi and use the autumn/winter feed as required.

Dont break ice on a pond,, I just pour hot water near the edge to melt the ice,just to release pressure,,or put a couple of kids balls in before it ices over.

Still feeding mine but changed to wheatgerm only a couple of weeks ago just to build up for winter,2/4 times aweek,this will stop over the next few weeks,,,,

I 've never lost a fish over winter in over 25 years.of mixed fish,including Koi.

morning julia, yes its our whirley, her coi pond is stunning, xxx

I stand corrected by a much younger brain than mine. Thank you young Stray. Yes, it is Whirley that breeds Koi Carp, not Hayley, as I previously said. My apologies.
Shame on me
Julia in Derbyshire

well you learn somthing new every day lol, x

You shouldnt break the ice cos it causes a rebound of sound which gives them a shock !!

is that why ya shouldnt break the ice on a ppond? i remember getting told of for it when little lol, x

They go into hibernation, Stray, like squirrels, hedgehogs and the like. They don't eat all winter, but don't they just make up for it when they wake up. Wish I could do that lol! Mind you, the foxes don't - they start getting 'frisky' about now - I can already hear them at this moment in my garden. Off to find my pea-shooter - I'll spoil their fun - hey, not in my back yard, mate, fiss off hee, hee!

oooooooooh thanks for this i have a small pond with a pump but its remained murkey any advice xxx

i stop feeding them when the weather gets really cold . they go down the bottom of the pond and hover!! sort of suspended in the water.

whirley has coi, xxx

do you really stop feeding fish in winter if there outside? well what do they eat?
we always had a pond but i cnt remembr nvr, not feeding them, saying tht mam fed them so i probably wouldnt have noticed her stopping, if she did haha x