Death in the family

Today was a very sad day. I had to remove Yellow Head from the pond. I'm not exactly sure of the COD (Cause of Death). I do how ever have two strong suspicions. First off we got to -12 degrees last night and there was 4 inches of ice on top of the pond. And somehow the water pump spit gallons of water out onto the ground leaving only about 3 inches of water at the bottom of the pond. There was a very big gap of air between the layer of ice and water which is really good.

So some how Yellow Head was up on a plant shelf out of water. If he was not already a fishcicle than the fact that the floating de-icer short circuited and barbecued him finished the job off. There was so much smoke billowing out of the pond and the smell of burning plastic oh my. But the de-icer got hung up on the plant shelf in the air part between the ice and water or it could have been worse like boiling water worse.

OK. the true horrors of the matter are in the bottom of the pond should have been 7 fish and so far I have only found Yellow Head. So I am literally breaking the ice off the top of the pond with my garden hoe so I can check on the other fish. Because truth be told if they were pondbefore the day got above zero. I think at this point there are six still alive so I lugged 8 gallons of water to tied everything over for a few hours.

Now the fun begins the de-icer manged to melt a hole in the pond liner so I could not completely fill it with water until that is patched and we are going to have another cold night. Luckily honey is home now and can deal with everything patching the liner, trying somehow removing the now permanently melted de-icer from its new home attached to the liner, and buying a new de-icer. I am just glad that my Koi did not die with Yellow Head. Yes, I saw their tails moving when I poked at them with the hoe.