# Dead as a stone



## garryc (Jan 21, 2006)

As the ice thawed in our club pond you could see the outline of many dead fish through it. Bass, Bluegills, Redears and Catfish. We went ahead and fired up the aerators and the smell of hydrogen sulfide was fairly strong. 

As you walk around it now you can see many dead fish floating, but you can also see many dead fish laying on the bottom. That seems to say that it has been dead for a while. Even the Amurs are dead, amirs and catfish, the most tolerant of low DO, dead. 

We now have a least 7 muskrat holes, never having an issue with them before. Really, there is little vegetation for them to eat, so they moved in to feed on dead fish. 

Hydrogen sulfide, we get a fairly thick coating of leaves in the pond from cottonwoods and willow along one bank. Big ones, 50 or so feet tall on the cottonwoods. 

Start over I guess.


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## Salmonid (Apr 14, 2004)

curious how big pond is, how long/late you aerated and is it a bottom diffuser? and I know your up north, with the heavy snow cover, you would have been wise to aerate several times for 24 hrs over the winter to let gases out and open up a 10 ft wide hole, I believe this would have fixed your problem, its the snow cover over the ice more then anything that caused your fish kill, also these kills seam really bad but the bigger fish( even catfish) need more oxygen then little guys so I imagine you lost the bigger fish but not the smaller fish, sort of mother natures way of turning over a new leaf for ponds. If you have hybrid bluegills, they are very fragile with low oxygen and stress easy. 

Salmonid


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## garryc (Jan 21, 2006)

Salmonid said:


> curious how big pond is, how long/late you aerated and is it a bottom diffuser? and I know your up north, with the heavy snow cover, you would have been wise to aerate several times for 24 hrs over the winter to let gases out and open up a 10 ft wide hole, I believe this would have fixed your problem, its the snow cover over the ice more then anything that caused your fish kill, also these kills seam really bad but the bigger fish( even catfish) need more oxygen then little guys so I imagine you lost the bigger fish but not the smaller fish, sort of mother natures way of turning over a new leaf for ponds. If you have hybrid bluegills, they are very fragile with low oxygen and stress easy.
> 
> Salmonid


The pond iced over late December and stayed completely frozen until the first week of March when I punched a small hole in it and got the windmill working temporarily. . Also with heavy snow on top. Ice 6-8 inches thick. Lots of small dead bluegill in the 2 inch range. 

One good thing, I saw two dead crappie. Some idiot thinks it's a good thing to have crappie in a .4 acre pond and put them in. Bucket transfer without authorization. We are going to be very clear, putting fish in this pond will be considered vandalism and treated as such.


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## [email protected] (Dec 22, 2006)

It sounds like it's time to sell the windmill and replace it with an electric compressor. Since you already have the airline and diffusers I would think that an electric compressor wouldn't cost tremendously more than refurbishing the windmill and it will be a lot more reliable. Since this is a club pond, electric usage should be considered but a few hundred dollars in electric is a lot cheaper than stocking fish.

You could put a few minnow traps about 3' deep around the pond in early May. Like Mark said, small fish have a much better chance of survival and finding some would be a good indication that it's inhabitable and would be useful information for formulating restocking strategies.


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## garryc (Jan 21, 2006)

[email protected] said:


> It sounds like it's time to sell the windmill and replace it with an electric compressor. Since you already have the airline and diffusers I would think that an electric compressor wouldn't cost tremendously more than refurbishing the windmill and it will be a lot more reliable. Since this is a club pond, electric usage should be considered but a few hundred dollars in electric is a lot cheaper than stocking fish.
> 
> You could put a few minnow traps about 3' deep around the pond in early May. Like Mark said, small fish have a much better chance of survival and finding some would be a good indication that it's inhabitable and would be useful information for formulating restocking strategies.


Normally walking around the pond this time of year you can see numerous small fish. At night, with a bright light, there is always an abundance. I did that yesterday and last night. I did not see a single living thing, not even a frog. That I have never seen before. 

I'm kind of hoping it was a total kill. As I cleaned out dead fish I found several large Crappie and about a dozen crappie in the 2 inch range. Yeah, whoever put white crappie in our .4 acre pond, they did spawn. Idiots. 

I'm thinking, for the reason of the crappie, that we should just go ahead an make sure it's all dead before we restock in May.


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## [email protected] (Dec 22, 2006)

This may be a good reason to drain the pond as far as possible then have a licensed applicator apply a piscicide. This reduces chemical cost and potential environmental impact. Take advantage of this time to improve structure within casting distance from shore and inspect the bottom and sides and make any needed repairs. It's not a good idea to leave it drained too long though as cracks in clay can form causing leaks.


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## WillyB2 (Dec 28, 2008)

I keep 1 diffuser running through out the winter. It keeps a nice big circle open. No dead fish to be seen. I have been doing this since I installed the aerators probably 4 years ago. Best of luck garryc in your restocking plans.


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## garryc (Jan 21, 2006)

[email protected] said:


> This may be a good reason to drain the pond as far as possible then have a licensed applicator apply a piscicide. This reduces chemical cost and potential environmental impact. Take advantage of this time to improve structure within casting distance from shore and inspect the bottom and sides and make any needed repairs. It's not a good idea to leave it drained too long though as cracks in clay can form causing leaks.


That is what I'm thinking, start from dead scratch. Do you have to drain it? I pulled it down a ways once then we didn't get enough rain to fill it back up. 

Stocking: We are looking at the package from Jones, but the striper component I don't think we need. I was considering putting in the Bluegills, Redears, fatheads and shiners this year and letting them spawn over one summer before putting in the bass.

We are looking at Hybrid gills because we want the kids to catch well in our derby in June. I know they say they can spawn and you get some green sunfish, but those are fun to catch. I just toss them out when I catch them. 

I've read that when the DO gets down to 3ppm sustained the bass, gills, crappie and catfish die. White Amures on the other hand can live down to <2ppm with short stays down to .5ppm. I put in three amures 3 years ago and pulled 3 dead ones out. From looking at the dead fish I get a real impression that the bass and gills died first, then the cats and amures. 

I honestly believe everything is dead. Not just from the low DO, but from the built up gasses. When we started the aerators the smell of hydrogen sulfide was strong. From the rotting leaves and I imagine the dead rotting fish on the bottom.


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## Deadeyedeek (Feb 12, 2014)

I had a difuser and aireator, and lost them all, even dead bullfrogs, but eveyone up north lost theres also..mother nature was cruel this year


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## [email protected] (Dec 22, 2006)

I think the liquid Rotenone is what is usually used. I've heard it takes anywhere from 1gal per acre foot to 4 gallons per acre foot for a sure kill. The stuff runs roughly $100/gallon. If the pond is .4 acres averaging 4' deep it'd be around 6 gallons $600 for chemicals, drain the pond half way and you might only need a couple of gallons or $200. This doesn't include the licensed applicator's cost either...really need to consult with a pro for this to weigh your options. I was considering doing this several years ago when gizzard shad showed up in my pond but never went through with it. My conclusion at the time was to partially drain and treat but I really don't remember all of the details.

It's supposed to kill off all fish within 2 hours. I like the idea of using less poison whenever possible even if cost isn't a concern. The treatment is supposed to be safe for restocking after 2 weeks. Generally, once you stop pumping the pond starts filling back up and diluting the chemical. If the pond is treated when it's pumped down, there's little chance of the pond overflowing a deadly concentration into a waterway.

As far as restocking, the longer you let the forage grow before adding predator fish the better. I have never had the same growth rate as I did in the first few years after stocking.

I stocked 25 hybrid bluegill to see how'd they do after hearing all the hype. They grew faster and were more aggressive than the standard bluegill. After 3 years though, the standard bluegill outgrew the hybrids. I also ended up with some inferior bluegillxhybrid crosses. They were basically like Danny DeVito in the movie Twins...seemed to get all the undesirable genes. I never saw any offspring resembling the green sunfish side that I've heard rumors of though. I think this is pretty unlikely when bluegills are also stocked as the hybrids will most likely breed with bluegill since they're like 80-100% males. The hybrid bluegill have since disappeared and so have their offspring. I haven't seen any since year 8. I will never restock them as I see no benefit other than a novelty. I'm also trying to grow larger bass and hybrid stripers so the added pressure they put on forage and lack of contribution to forage doesn't really fit into the plans and goals at my place. Hybrid bluegill were experimented with to create a viable commercially produced bluegill for food. I think the idea was to have a bigger mouth to take pellets and thicker body for fillets in shorter time. It never really panned out though...either in the fish market demand or growth performance I believe.

I think, hybrid bluegill would be well suited for a put&take scenario, (perhaps this is why they're often recommended by fish farms). They don't reproduce nearly enough (if at all) to support a bass population, but something like a combo of hybrid bluegill, Hybrid stripers and some channel cats with the addition of a feeding program could produce some really nice fish very quickly with populations that are easy to manage. The disadvantage would be that they would need restocked regularly...as would the feeder.

If more fish for the kids is the reason for stocking them, I think I'd skip the redears and put in more standard bluegills in their place. I don't think there's a lot of benefit to stocking them unless snails are a problem. They don't grow huge here like they do in the South and produce less forage too. Forage for predators is usually the biggest problem to overcome in small ponds.

I've posted these before but I think it does a good job illustrating the difference at around the 3 year mark
Standard bluegill









Hybrid Bluegill









This is a Hybrid bluegill X standard bluegill at about 3-4 years (guess).


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## rustyfish (Apr 27, 2004)

Hybrids are a fad. Male gills grow faster. The Hybrid cross averages 80-95% male. This is the reason for most of the growth and size hype. If you break it down and look at the numbers on average per sex, not that impressive. We produced a 100% male strain of Bluegill that put all other sunfish strains to shame. Something that will most likely become very popular in fish farming.

You most likely had no or only a few hybrid females, so as you said they crossed with Bluegill causing them to look more like BG. If hybrids cross with hybrids then they will revert back to what looks like stunted Greens.


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## [email protected] (Dec 22, 2006)

Rustyfish, I find the same sex production information very interesting. I take it this was accomplished with a YY male.

I'd like to see all female bass stock be available too. This would make managing small ponds for trophy bass a lot simpler.


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## rustyfish (Apr 27, 2004)

Yes. It is a cool process it just takes a long time to guess the right fish and check your results. The crazy thing about it is that with all the technology available for genetic mapping and markers, there are none for sex identification. Only option is to let them grow until you can visually check. I left before we tried to make a YY female that would be needed for mass reproduction.

As for bass, I have no clue on the ability to make a female produce milt. Seems reasonable enough but not something I have done. If so that would be the only step so it would be a much quicker process. 

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