Sunday, December 5, 2010

What do fish do in winter?



Absolutley Nothing!
These Koi and Goldfish are spending the winter in an unheated pond in our greenhouse, which is also unheated. The pond contains double 9" aeration disk, run by a small Hakko aerator. This supplies sufficient movement to the water to prevent the pond from freezing solid in the winter time. It also prevents gases released from any decaying or decomposing material from building up. The air temperature in the greenhouse is minus 10. When it was minus 25 a few weeks ago, we plugged in a floating heater for a day or 2 to melt the ice that was forming on the surface.
The fish are motionless at the moment, as there are no water currents that would cause them to have to use their fins, which in turn, also preserves the body fat they built up by consuming a large amont of food in the summer time.