Frozen pond
Question:
I had about 30 fish die in my pond recently. This has never happened before. I live in Hinckley Ohio and we had a lot of snow and the pond was frozen longer than normal. It had thawed out about 2 months ago and refroze. The fish were frozen on the top.
Answer:
If your pond was completely frozen over then harmful gases would have been trapped under the ice. These harmful gases are toxic to pond fish.
It is very important during the winter months to have a hole in the ice with the use of a de-icer and also providing adequate aeration in your pond as well.
Without the extra source of oxygen your pond fish would have had a difficult time trying to breathe and eventually would have died.
It is also very important not to feed your pond fish too early. You don’t want to start feeding your pond fish until the water temperature of the pond is a stable 50 degrees F. Starting to feed your pond fish too early is difficult on their digestive system and also would create more fish waste than could be handled from your last treatment of Beneficial Bacteria.
More than likely the lack of dissolved oxygen in the pond was the culprit.