Winter Fish Kill

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.
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