I have both a large koi pond and a goldfish pond of similar size to your
own, I never feed any of them from when it gets cold october'ish until late
March / early April and have never seen any ill effects. As regards the
goldfish I have plenty of plants in their pond and never feed them at any
time, they seem to thrive on this neglect as the original 12 have now
multiplied in to! well I loose count but well past the 40 in your own.
As for maintenance I usually just cut all the plants hard back in
October and net as much rubbish of the bottom as possible and as for the
rest of the year I just top up for evaporation.
A doddle after sorting out the complicated system in the koi Pond.

Jon
Doncaster


"Anthropy" wrote in message
...
Please help.
We have a pond, about 3 x 4 x 4 (feet). We've had it for about 5 years
and everything was great. It contains about 40 goldfish but recently
they have begun dying. The dead ones are small and appear to be a
silvery \gold type colour.
We don't do anything to the pond other than feed the fish and clear
off the leaves and stuff off the surface and until now all has been
fine. We haven't changed the food nor put anything in the water. The
bigger fish seem to be OK but 5 have died in the last week.
There is no residue or anything usual about the pond. The fish are a
bit slow but that is just the cold (It's winter here England,
Brighton)
Could it be something to do with the fluctuating temperature we're
experiencing this winter?
Please, if you can help or recommend anything we'd be most grateful.
Thanks.