Urgh. Pond fish dead. Thoughts as to why?

Question

I'm setting up our tub pond. 35 gallons, about 1.5 feet deep, 3 feet wide.

We added water from the garden hose and a teeny bit of established pond water, rocks, a few plants. Fish....put them in last night. Today they're all floaters. 3 fancy guppies, 4 comets (feeder fish). Only our snail survived.

We're just south of the SF bay in California. Temps are not that cold in the evening. We opened all the windows last night to cool off the house.

What do you think we did wrong?

Answer 1

You should have let your tub pond cycle, then add the fish. It might also be due to stress. You should have also added an air pump, heater, and filter. This will will keep the water in the right temperature and provide the fishes w/ loads of oxygen.  

Answer 2

You need to fill up the pond and like 3 days later, ( without fish in the pond ) take a little bit of the water to a pond store, they will check the chemical level and if its ok, you can put fish in.

Answer 3

your water might have a high chlorine level.

Answer 4

You didn't allow your pond to mature, and develop all the microbes, and most importantly oxygen the fish needed to survive.

You also probably used city water, which was completely toxic with chemicals (like chlorine) the city adds to keep the water clean for human drinking.

~Garnet

Permaculture homesteading/farming over 20 years

Answer 5

its the chlorine of your water poisoned your fish

kOi keeper & goldfish keeper

http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/world...

http://www.geocities.com/koiphilippines/...

Answer 6

The hose water has too much clorine in it. you have to put the right chemicals in there to keep it from harming the fish. you normally have to let that sit for 24 hours least before adding any fish too! Any pet store should have what you need. Some feed stores carry that stuff cheap too,  but I'm in Texas, not sure if you even have feed stores there?

Answer 7

Did you forget to feed them?

Also, the water might have been too cold if it was just out of your hose.

Answer 8

i think you should have conditioned the tap water first. the water needs to sit about 5 days before adding fish.

Answer 9

How you introduced the fish into the new water may have been the problem.  Fish are highly sensitive to temperature change(they die)   You should have put the fish in a plastic bag with  a pond water insulative bubble around the fish and closed the bag and set the bag into the new pond without opening the bag for at least half and hour....then let them out of the bag with the old pond water as well.(that minimal amount of dirty water is not a worry.    The water in the bag would have had a chance to become the same as the pond slowly and the fish could adjust slowly to the temperature change and survived.