Fall and Winter Goldfish Pond Care
Fall Pond Season
As the Summer winds down, the waterlilies and marginal plants begin to die back. The water temperature begins to drop and the goldfish slow down. Autumn leaves fall onto the pond adding to the rotting organic debris in the goldfish pond. The following are some goldfish care tips for fall and winter
- Continue feeding as long as goldfish are active. begin to switch to an Autumn pod food
- Before the pond water temperature drops treat any goldfish disease or injuries.
- Avoid buying any new aquatic plants since they will die back very soon.
- Remove dead leaves and stocks of aquatic plants
- Cut back marginal plants and oxygenators after the first frost but leave waterlilies to overwinter.
- Propagate and repot oxygenator plants
- Remove leaves that have fallen into the goldfish pond. Add a net if needed.
- Clean filters and inspect all goldfish pond equipment.
- Turn down water pumps to help regulate the water temperature
- Turn of water features to avoid mixing colder surface water with warmer water at the bottom.
Winter Pond Season
As the air and water temperature drops the pond becomes inactive. Most aquatic plants have died back to nothing. Goldfish stay to the bottom where the water is warmest and don’t eat as much as they normally would. During cold winters ice might even cover the surface of the pond.
- Switch to an easy to digest Winter pond food and feed the goldfish less.
- Stop feeding entirely if the pond water temperature drops bellow 40*F (5*C).
- Add pond nets if goldfish pond predators have easy access to the goldfish or leaves continue to fall on the pond.
- Continue to remove any rotting organic matter from the goldfish pond.
- Keep water features turned off and raise the filter out-flow to keep a warmer layer of water at the bottom.
- In freezing climates remove shut off pumps and pipe work to avoid ice damage.
- Add a floating pond heater or ice vent to keep ice from completely covering the water surface
It’s important to keep the goldfish pond from completely freezing over as it can damaged the sides of a concrete pond and allow the toxic gasses to build up under the surface of the water. Pond heaters and polystyrene foam ice vents not only create an opening for the exchanges of gasses but it give goldfish a place to congregate in the warmer and more oxygenated water. In very cold temperatures an ice vent can freeze over too; a floating pond heater is the best method to keep ice from forming.
Buy Fall and Winter Goldfish Supplies
Spring Fall Food with Wheat Germ
Winter Pond Fish Food
Floating Pond De-Icer
Winterizing Kit: Heater, Net, Aerator
Next Season: Spring Pond Season
string moss gets on my water fall rocks how do Ikeep that from happening.thanks Louie
You have done everything that I would suggest other than buying a pond heater. Usually the running waterfall and fountains would make the water colder but it would also increase the oxygen in the pond. The deeper the pond the better the buffer and the warmer the water would be at the bottom. You also said you didn’t have any loss last year so it would lead me to believe they can survive the low temps….although any goldfish can die from a fast change in water temp…but your pond is large and most likely would cool much slower than your neighbors??… I’m as perplexed as you are about your fish loss. I would recommend a pond heater and also test the water parameters to see if something is off. The pond heater obviously doesn’t have to heat up the entire pond, just a small area for the fish to congregate and stay warmer. There are also floating heaters that will keep the ice from freezing over.
we have a large pond 20ft X 20ft, 5ft.6ins deep in middle and 2ft.6ins at shallowest. We have lost 12 large goldfish and our only 2 large Koi Carp due to the extreme low temperatures. We always kept our pump and waterfall switched off at night (on a timer) and kept it switched off once the pond temp dropped. We first discovered 5 dead Goldfish and one Karp during begginning of the first cold spell. Our neighbour’s pond is only 2.5ft deep, much smaller than ours, and kept his waterfall on continuously, he hasn’t lost any fish to date. With this in mind we decided to switch our waterfall back on, since then we have lost another 7 goldfish and the other Koi during the second cold spell we had. The pond has remained frozen since the end of November, we kept a hole by pouring hot water onto to shallowest part of the pond. We realy don’t know what to do now to care for the rest of our fish and to prevent more loss. By the way, we had no loss of fish last year despite our pond being frozen for a long period of time and the pump and waterfall working on it’s timer throughout the winter. Any advice would be very much appreciated. Regards M Colledge