It was a sad day yesterday, I lost 9 fish to the freezing temperatures weve had this winter. It has been unusualy very cold this year weve never had a cold winter like this one for a while. Unfortunately it took its tole on my fish, two of them were old between 10 and 12 years old, I still have 4 left and im taking extra special care of them. Sadly you cant do a great deal to help fish over the winter appart from a few things like:
Make shore that the pond they are in is deep enough so they dont get caught up in the ice, say about 4 feet deep.
Make sure that they have plenty of space in the pond to move around a bit and they are not cramped up.
And always make sure that there is a air hole in the ice to allow oxygen in and harmfull gasses out. This can be achieved by placing any floating object like a football or a large plastic pop bottle on top of the pond to take out and put back in to keep the hole open. When making a hole in the ice do not smash the ice with a heavy object this can shock your fish and may be kill them. Melt a hole gently by placing a pan or kettle on the ice to melt through gently with hot water in them not boiling water.
