How to prevent a Winter fish kill
It's never a good day when we walk to the pond only to see the fish gasping for air in the open water. Or worse yet is getting to the pond to see them all floating or already on the shoreline.
Why does a winter fish kill happen? During the summer months the pond does its best to accumulate oxygen by surface area contact, wave action to break surface tension and plants or weeds that produce a small amount of oxygen. All may be well for a while but even summer fish kills can happen.
Let's stick with winter fish kill and why. Spring, summer and fall help to add oxygen to the pond but only as deep as it can. Below that during the warmer months there is a thermocline created, a barrier of sorts that separate the warm and cold water which could only be a few degrees different in temperature. The warm water having oxygen and the colder water has very little if any oxygen.
Now visualize a cross section of the pond with an imaginary line called the thermocline separating the warm and cold water. As winter approaches the pond water cools down, plants and fish also slow down their activities. All is good, for now, even when ice forms and covers the pond as sunlight can still penetrate the ice and keep the weeds and plants alive to produce a little oxygen. But then the snow starts to accumulate on the ice and blocks the sunlight letting any weeds or plants to die, sink to the bottom and decompose creating carbon dioxide, ammonia and hydrogen sulfide.
As the decaying process continues through winter so does the amount of gasses build and push towards the surface. The fish need to move and stay above these gasses in the water with oxygen. If the pond fills with these gasses the fish will suffocate. That' why we see them gasping for air at the surface.
How can we help save the fish in this time of need. An aeration system designed and calculated for the pond size and volume. During the warmer months the aeration is pushing up and out the bad gasses and allowing beneficial bacteria to the floor of the pond to help consume the muck and nutrients. Properly sized aeration system should be able to turn over the entire pond volume at least once a day and be able to move water starting at the floor of the pond. Essentially building oxygen from top to bottom, stock piling and saturating for the long winter months.
But what to do when winter comes? When the water temps' hit 55 degrees we want to move one diffuser to half the depth of the pond to keep a hole in the ice allowing gasses to escape, keeping open water for sunlight to keep alive your wanted aquatic plants and water to air oxygen exchange. The diffuser can be placed under your deck, dock or other structure to keep it ice free and from being lift by the ice.
Do I really need to run the aeration system during winter? No, but only if you have been running the system all summer long building oxygen in the entire volume of the pond. If you have two or more diffusers only leave one operating after it has been placed at half the depth of the pond. If the pond is 10' deep, locate the diffuser at 5' deep this keeps from super cooling the pond and harming the fish.
One caution on aerating during winter is to make the commitment to leave it run 24/7. Running the compressor only at night or on and off during a day could be harmful for the compressor. They do generate heat, then with the cold, condensation will accumulate in the compressor when it is off, freezing temps' will form ice and when the compressor comes on again is when damage could happen. The reason I said commitment is the electric bill on the larger systems. On the other hand there is hope using a small diaphragm aerator called the KoiAir 1, using very little electricity monthly while keeping that hole in the ice for toxic gasses to escape and saving your dock or deck from being lifted by the ice.
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