Cold water

Goldfish are cold water fish and are perfectly fine at 45 degrees. I
wouldn't waste your electricity trying to raise the pond temp. Now if your
pond was in danger of freezing completely then I would heat it.

Sam

"animaux" wrote in message
...
Well, I bought a heater for the pond. The pond is a combined 165 gallons
with
four 12" comets. The water dropped to 45oF last night, not much warmer
today.
We are pretty cold for Texas.

Anyway, the fish are huddling at the bottom, moving very little, but look
fine.

Here is the question:

Would the pond stay a bit warmer if we do two things; remove the water
globe
feature, and stop the waterfall feature from the other pond. By the other
pond,
I mean the 30 gallon part where the water drips into the 135 gallon tank.
It
was my thought that putting the water into the air via the water globe
(bell or
whatever they call it) the warmth is being totally lost in the cold air.

I just want what's best for the fish.

V

Turning off the water bell and the water fall from the small pond will allow
for all evaporative cooling to be limited to the rather small surface area
of the pond, rather than the large surface area of these. The heater can be
used to keep a hole in the ice, as can an air stone, or just the pump
without the water bell, just stirring the surface. Unless you cover the
pond with some form of plastic tent, greenhouse, or similar, the heat loss
from evaporation will be more than a heater can overcome.
--
RichToyBox
http://www.geocities.com/richtoybox/pondintro.html


"animaux" wrote in message
...
Well, I bought a heater for the pond. The pond is a combined 165 gallons
with
four 12" comets. The water dropped to 45oF last night, not much warmer
today.
We are pretty cold for Texas.

Anyway, the fish are huddling at the bottom, moving very little, but look
fine.

Here is the question:

Would the pond stay a bit warmer if we do two things; remove the water
globe
feature, and stop the waterfall feature from the other pond. By the other
pond,
I mean the 30 gallon part where the water drips into the 135 gallon tank.
It
was my thought that putting the water into the air via the water globe
(bell or
whatever they call it) the warmth is being totally lost in the cold air.

I just want what's best for the fish.

V

Your fish will be just fine as long as the water remains liquid, that is,
not frozen solid. They will just hunker down and wait till things warm up.
Don't feed them ANYTHING when the water temp is below 50 degrees though. If
the pond would freeze over, it would be a good idea to keep a hole open in
the ice. A small air pump and air stone meant for aquarium use would do it.

Paul

"animaux" wrote in message
...
Well, I bought a heater for the pond. The pond is a combined 165 gallons
with
four 12" comets. The water dropped to 45oF last night, not much warmer
today.
We are pretty cold for Texas.

Anyway, the fish are huddling at the bottom, moving very little, but look
fine.

Here is the question:

Would the pond stay a bit warmer if we do two things; remove the water
globe
feature, and stop the waterfall feature from the other pond. By the other
pond,
I mean the 30 gallon part where the water drips into the 135 gallon tank.
It
was my thought that putting the water into the air via the water globe
(bell or
whatever they call it) the warmth is being totally lost in the cold air.

I just want what's best for the fish.

V

V,

I have two goldfish in my teeny water garden here in Raleigh, NC (zone
) -- unless the water surface has totally frozen over, I leave the Little
Giant pump running with a "water bell" (aka "dog water fountain!"). On most
days during the winter, there is at least some open water around the
fountain -- so I figure, air gets into the water & noxious gases are
released from the pond.

As for feeding the fish, although I check the temperature of the water and
don't feed the goldfish if the water temp is below 55 (don't scream, folks,
but I use the instant-read digital thermometer from my kitchen drawer to
check temps in both the pond & my vegetable garden; after all, my dogs drink
the water from the pond, and we eat the veggies that grow in the garden) --
I *also* look at the goldfish themselves.

If the fish are just hanging out motionless at the bottom of the pond, I
don't feed them. If I see any motion from them, I make a mental note to
check them later (it's common to have both heat & A/C working on the same
day here, for weeks at a time!). If the fish are "flitting" around faster
than I can follow them, I give them a teeny pinch of food. (Probably more
for my benefit than for theirs, admittedly.)

Note: I'm talking here about *goldfish* not koi -- as I believe the
original poster was, also.

Anne Lurie
Raleigh, NC
__________________

"animaux" wrote in message
...
Well, I bought a heater for the pond. The pond is a combined 165 gallons
with
four 12" comets. The water dropped to 45oF last night, not much warmer
today.
We are pretty cold for Texas.

Anyway, the fish are huddling at the bottom, moving very little, but look
fine.

Here is the question:

Would the pond stay a bit warmer if we do two things; remove the water
globe
feature, and stop the waterfall feature from the other pond. By the other
pond,
I mean the 30 gallon part where the water drips into the 135 gallon tank.
It
was my thought that putting the water into the air via the water globe
(bell or
whatever they call it) the warmth is being totally lost in the cold air.

I just want what's best for the fish.

V

Oh, you got the expensive ones! My goldfish are the 10 for $1.00 feeder
fish. They're 4 years old now. Started with 20 ( yeah, a whole $2.00 worth )
must have 50 or so now, 2'', the young-uns, to 10", the original ones. Like
I said in previous post, I don't feed them ANYTHING at all when the water
temp is below 50o F. It's not so much a swelling of the food thing as it is
a digestion thing. Rumor is, that below 50, the bacteria in their stomach
goes dormant and as a result food will rot in the stomach (bad thing)
leading to belly up syndrome. My fish, the 50 goldfish and 8 koi, go from
mid October to around April without ANY food. I suppose they eat the
occasional bug and maybe some algae, but nothing 'manmade'. They do just
fine.

Paul

On Fri, 28 Nov 2003 03:33:44 GMT, animaux wrote:

The problem is, I live in Texas. Some day it will be 45, next day, it will be
80. Many of the average days are 65 by day, 40 by night. I will take your
advice and tell my husband to stop feeding them. There are plants, duck weed,
algae, etc. I would simply hate to do anything to harm them in any way.

V

I think what Paul is trying to say is, you may very well harm them with
kindness. Living where you do you're probably fine, but someone else may
have 45-50F water and feed (hey, V said she feeds when her fish are
moving), not checking to find out there is a serious cold front coming in
that night.

One may not have a bigger brain than their goldfish, but anyone reading
this does have access to weather.com via the internet. ;o) ~ jan

See my ponds thru the seasons and/or my filter design:
http://users.owt.com/jjspond/

~Keep 'em Defrosted~
Tri-Cities, WA Zone 7a
To e-mail see website

Remember, we're talking WATER temp here. Water temp tends to be the average
of the high and low temps for the past few days, depending on the size of
the pond, among other things. When in doubt, don't feed them. It will always
be better to under feed them than over feed. Ask any ponder when the last
time was that they had a fish starve to death.

Paul

"animaux" wrote in message
...
The problem is, I live in Texas. Some day it will be 45, next day, it
will be
80. Many of the average days are 65 by day, 40 by night. I will take
your
advice and tell my husband to stop feeding them. There are plants, duck
weed,
algae, etc. I would simply hate to do anything to harm them in any way.

V

I live in Middle Georgia Zone 8 and feed my fish most of the year. I
stop feeding when the fish (goldfish and koi) line up on the bottom
and stop coming to the top to eat. I do switch from Mazuri Platinum
to wheat germ feed when the water temperature gets around 50F. I've
talked to other ponders here that feed the same type of feed although
less throughout the winter. Winter is relative. Down here it can
mean two days of ice on the pond up yonder it can mean months of ice
on the pond.

Regards,

Hal

On Fri, 28 Nov 2003 03:33:44 GMT, animaux
wrote:

The problem is, I live in Texas. Some day it will be 45, next day, it will be
80. Many of the average days are 65 by day, 40 by night. I will take your
advice and tell my husband to stop feeding them. There are plants, duck weed,
algae, etc. I would simply hate to do anything to harm them in any way.

A bit of clarification here, if I may:

Although I thought from V's second post that she was talking about goldfish,
her first post mentions comets, and I have no idea what kind of fish they
are.

Also, I was the one who mentioned feeding my fish when I saw them moving,
not V.

These folks are definitely right -- overfeeding fish is much worse than
underfeeding them!

BTW, Jan is absolutely right about checking the weather forecast; it's one
of those things that I'm so used to doing that I don't even realize I'm
doing it -- or to point it out to others.

Anne Lurie
Raleigh, NC

"~ jan JJsPond.us" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 28 Nov 2003 03:33:44 GMT, animaux wrote:

The problem is, I live in Texas. Some day it will be 45, next day, it
will be
80. Many of the average days are 65 by day, 40 by night. I will take
your
advice and tell my husband to stop feeding them. There are plants, duck
weed,
algae, etc. I would simply hate to do anything to harm them in any way.

V

I think what Paul is trying to say is, you may very well harm them with
kindness. Living where you do you're probably fine, but someone else may
have 45-50F water and feed (hey, V said she feeds when her fish are
moving), not checking to find out there is a serious cold front coming in
that night.

One may not have a bigger brain than their goldfish, but anyone reading
this does have access to weather.com via the internet. ;o) ~ jan

See my ponds thru the seasons and/or my filter design:
http://users.owt.com/jjspond/

~Keep 'em Defrosted~
Tri-Cities, WA Zone 7a
To e-mail see website

snip
BTW, Jan is absolutely right about checking the weather forecast; it's one
of those things that I'm so used to doing that I don't even realize I'm
doing it -- or to point it out to others.
snip

Are you saying you check the weather to determine if you can feed your fish
or not? I can't imagine day to day swings are that important are they? I
always thought it was a consistent ambient temperature (IE seasonal) that
was the issue.


--
BV.
WebPorgmaster
www.IHeartMyPond.com
Help Support IHMP by shopping at Amazon.com thru our associates link,
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/re...ome/dcg8118-20.