Water is too hot in my pond

Urengoi40

Feeder Fish
Jul 26, 2015
3
0
1
58
I live in Houston TX and when temperature hit > 100 F all my gold fish died. I have about 60% of the surface covered with plants, and I even installed a tent over my pond, but it did not help. I tried additional aeration as well. The water temperature reached 95F and over several days fish started dying. The algae bloomed and it did not help the quality of water in the pond. Nothing seems can be done when the surface is exposed to light, even not a directly. The pond size is 1200 gal. Anyone can advise what I could have done?
 

Wailua Boy

Potamotrygon
MFK Member
Jan 2, 2015
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I try to start doing daily water changes on heat waves at the hottest part of the day. The tap water cools off the pond a fair amount. Its not a perfect fix but for short periods of time it can help.
 

Wailua Boy

Potamotrygon
MFK Member
Jan 2, 2015
2,752
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Hawaii
Also is the heat killing off your plants? If so, find a plant that can survive. Water lilies seem to handle the heat. Dying plants can release a lot of ammonia, etc.
 

ShadowP

Candiru
MFK Member
Apr 23, 2015
396
70
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Southeastern North Carolina
Guessing you have a dark liner. In really hot climates, a light liner works best and also a deeper pond to take advantage of geothermal cooling (5' to 6') with steep wall toward the sunny side so to cast greatest amount of shadow, though can't help if sun overhead. If so, place large flat sections of slate or other lighter stones as overhang to deepest areas. Light tans & browns river rocks and light sandy/gravelly mix across bottom will help also. Big elephant ear and philodendron will provide good shade at edges. Water hyacinth with it's leaves above the water will provide good shade in numbers w/o cutting surface area down much. And a bunch of umbrella style water fountains to hasten evaporative cooling effect. Powrheads to lawn type mini misters spraying back into pond will help also.

Sorry to hear about your dilemma... these are the best recommendations I can think of. Maybe someone else can add more to help.
 

Urengoi40

Feeder Fish
Jul 26, 2015
3
0
1
58
What I did helped to reduce the temperature by about 5 degrees was a bit inventive. I put into the pond three water containers connected to each other. Then I connected the containers to the garden tap and let the tap water circulate through the containers. The containers acted as refrigerators and help to cool the pond down. You can regulate the flow and since the tap water is around 70 degrees it does help to cool down the pond. It is a hassle though.
 

xraycer

Arapaima
MFK Member
Sep 5, 2013
5,383
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Southern NH USA
An idea just occurred to me while reading this thread. Its based on this diy, but backwards. The coil will be buried underground instead. Basically a geothermal concept.
 

Kittiee Katt

Potamotrygon
MFK Member
Aug 1, 2015
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My House!
Lol I freeze zip lock bags with tank water during summer if it gets above 27°c and put back in my goldfish tank, one bag frozen into slush takes the tank down about 1°c. However my tank is only 400ltr so this works. With a pond you'd need a very large freezer and a lot of zip lock bags. :)
 

HungDang

Piranha
MFK Member
Nov 29, 2010
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Fort Worth
I'm in DFW area and it got to 115F last year, my pond was completely covered with water lilies and temperature never pass 90F. Algae can not grow with that 90% coverage and a big(probably over kill size for a 1000gallon pond) UV sterilizer.
 

Urengoi40

Feeder Fish
Jul 26, 2015
3
0
1
58
Thank you for the tip HungDang. My pond is young and I am going to grow more lilies for sure to have a larger coverage. My bottles did help me though.
Thanks again!
 

HungDang

Piranha
MFK Member
Nov 29, 2010
2,968
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81
Fort Worth
No problem! also having some air pump running into the pond would help too, because the higher level of oxygen keep the temperature down. Your fish might have died due to low oxygen level in the pond when temperature get too high and not because they can't endure the heat.
 
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