Emma wrote in message
I wonder if someone can help me. We have a small pond in the garden that
did
have 4 lovely goldfish in it. Over the summer they disappeared, not sure
what
happened, and we assumed there was nothing in there. However, in September
we
noticed 2 little beautiful black baby fish swimming merrily around.
They're
only about 2 inches long. My question is what do we do over the winter? Do
fish
need feeding in the winter or do we leave them?


With only two small fish in your pond, the others being eaten probably by
herons before you were even awake, you will never need to feed your fish.
Certainly if you feed fish with the normal dried food much below 50°F they
will be unable to digest it quickly enough to avoid it rotting in their guts
with dire consequences for them come spring. Don't forget they are cold
blooded so go almost dormant in cold water.
Young Goldfish are often black and unfortunately they often fail to ever
change colour, it's their natural colour after all. I've always thought that
temperature plays a part in the changing of their colour so you might get a
pleasant surprise come next summer. But then the heron will be back too for
an easily seen meal!
If your pond freezes totally over for more than a few days you will need to
provide an open area to allow gas exchange to take place between the water
and the air to avoid the build up of toxic gasses in the water, and the best
way to achieve that is to place a large ball in there pond now and take it
out when it freezes, thereafter melt a hole with a sauce pan of hot water
stood on the ice. Never hit the ice, you could damage the spine of the fish
and kill them, you would be acting exactly like a depth charge against a
submarine.

--
Regards
Bob

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