How to hibernate?

[enrgizerbunny]

Hey guys, as the temperatures start to fall, when should I start being very sensitive about feeding my 8 common goldies that are going to winter outside? The water temperature has been hovering around 60 degrees so they are still pretty active. I still have garlic in the grow bed so if they get over fed a little it won't hurt anything.

Also, add I live on the east coast we are prone to having super warm streaks followed by cold snaps in fall, should I feed when the water gets above a certain temperature our just let them hibernate through it?

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[54seaweed]

gold fish will find there own food in the pond itself so I would just let them do there thing
if your temps are still ranging in the 70's to mid 60's yes you can give them a snack
but they will find bug larvae and other stuff to survive once it goes below 60 leave them alone

 

[enrgizerbunny]

They're not really in a pond so they don't get much in the way of natural food because of the location. I feed them earthworms as I find them and toss bugs in, but their staple food is omega one and peas.

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[jlk]

Keep a close eye on the pond temperature (as in daily). Once it starts hovering around 50f, time to stop feeding until the water warms back up over 50f in the spring. Warm snaps are pretty irrelevant as pond water temps do not change very quickly. Its more important to not feed for their health over the winter. Make sure you have plans in place for preventing the 'pond' from freezing over completely to ensure a greater likelihood that most fish will survive. Please ask if you have any questions!

 

[54seaweed]

They're not really in a pond so they don't get much in the way of natural food because of the location. I feed them earthworms as I find them and toss bugs in, but their staple food is omega one and peas.

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if its not really a pond what is it ? please don't say a kiddie pool as that would freeze solid
how big , how deep ect is this make shift pond
if they are to survive the winter outside knowing how it can get cold in VA
they'll need to have a pond at-least 3 ft deep to be below the frost line
as I've seen ice freeze almost 2 ft deep when I lived in NC
as long as you have a depth of at least 3ft and acquit algae growth they'll be able to survive
I've also seen people use water bed heaters under the liner to prevent ice from freezing to thick and have good results and that's out here in Colorado where our temps get way colder than the southern east coat

 

[enrgizerbunny]

if its not really a pond what is it ? please don't say a kiddie pool as that would freeze solid
how big , how deep ect is this make shift pond
if they are to survive the winter outside knowing how it can get cold in VA
they'll need to have a pond at-least 3 ft deep to be below the frost line
as I've seen ice freeze almost 2 ft deep when I lived in NC
as long as you have a depth of at least 3ft and acquit algae growth they'll be able to survive
I've also seen people use water bed heaters under the liner to prevent ice from freezing to thick and have good results and that's out here in Colorado where our temps get way colder than the southern east coat

It's a 70 gallon agriculture tub, about 30 inches tall. I have a 560gph pump that runs the aquaponics system that will be converted to a deicer when the temperatures fall, after I harvest my garlic. In going to change the plumbing and just make it a big circulator that pushes water across the surface. I only got 2 inches of ice last year without the pump running, so I'm not worried about the thing freezing solid, plus it's next to the house, so it picks up some heat off of that too.

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