bullheads dying

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Y

Yagle

Feeder Fish
Mar 12, 2012
2
0
0
Wisconsin
I am really upset, I had two bullheads that I raised from babies in my outdoor pond. Last summer they had babies and wasliving well. My pond is five foot in one end and two foot in shallow end. We keep a waterfall going all winter. Last week my pond thawed out and my bullheads were dead. What could have gone wrong? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Other fish in the pond are goldfish and Koi. I want to keep this from happening in the future, bullheads are one of my favorite and I really do feel bad this has happened.
 
I catch bullhead all winter through the ice. If the pond completely freezes over it can run out of oxygen. Did the waterfall keep a portion open? Did all the vegetation die off? Were the bullheads local or a purchased southern strain? A bubbler will keep it open and supply oxygen. Break it open if it closes up completely and run bubbler on fridgid nights.

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Bullheads are usually last fish to be dying from lack of oxygen not goldfish and koi. I often find bullheads in deep trout lakes and shallow muddy ponds so it wasn't winterkill or low temperature that did kill your bullheads and I believe that the stresses or diseases that did kill all of your bullheads.
 
pretty mild winter for them to die from that, especially if they've survived where they were during previous years. how old were they? they don't live too long, only 5-8 years (or so I've read).
 
Oh right, this year's winters werent that cold
 
thanks everybody, now the saga gets more interesting. the bullheads that died were only three years old. Yes the pond does stay open all winter. Today I went out to my pond to find live baby bullheads. So what the heck, the adults die but babies from last summer survive? I stop feeding my other fish when the water temperature falls below fifty degrees, should I have kept feeding them thru the winter?
 
I don't think it was feeding issues that killed adult bullheads since they don't eat very much in the wild during winters.
 
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