My pond is in it's fourth year. It is about 3,500 gals. I have a 300 gal settlement pond, and my top pond is a huge veggie filter approximately 200 gallons. Every winter I keep a hole in the ice with either a submersible pump or a bubbler. This is the first time ever I have experienced fish loss. I worked on the pond all day today. I raised the skimmer and moved it forward so I had to drain about 2 feet of water out of the pond. I didn't replace all of the water because I didn't have declorinator so I only added about three inches back. I have two bubblers for aeration. When I added the water I sprayed it into the pond to remove some of the chlorine. While the hose was running I cleaned up the tools and put everything away. I came in the house to take a shower. When I looked out the upstairs bathroom window I saw my all white ogon koi floating belly up. I went back outside and netted it out of the pond. It must have been dead for a while. It's eyes were white and it was covered with algae. I had a feeling something was wrong because I haven't seen a fish yet. As a matter of fact I still haven't seen any fish because my water is green with algae. When I throw a few cheerios into the pond no fish come to the surface to eat. I think spraying the water into the pond agitated the water enough to bring the dead ogon to the surface. My frogs are in the big pond which concerns me. They usually don't go in the big pond because the fish nibble at their legs. I am afraid to look out the window tomorrow. Don't know what I may find. My plan tomorrow is to go to Petsmart for some dechlorinator, fill the pond up and fire up the pumps. Hopefully my other four koi are still alive at the bottom. I had an all white koi and an all black koi because I heard it was good Feng Shui (sp) and also the black koi would be the first to die if anything was wrong with the water. If it is dead it hasn't surfaced yet.

My neighbor called me a few weeks ago and told me there were kids behind my garage. They opened the gate behind my garage and cut through my neighbors yard so my neighbor wanted to know if it was alright if she bought a lock for the gate and shared a key with me. I hope there wasn't any foul play with my pond. I told her cutting through yards is just the beginning. Next we'll have vandalism.

When I checked to see if there were anymore floaters before it got dark (there weren't) I heard the frogs croaking and a toad trilling. Guess with ponding you have to the good as well as the bad.

Jenny