Very nice goldfish Sandy.

Thank y'all those are 2 of my feeder fish. The one with the darker markings was originally bronze.
For anyone who does not know what a feeder fish is they are very very cheap, rejected fish that are sold to be fed to other animals.

It's all I will put in my outdoor ponds. Less grief when eaten by wildlife that way. They get quite big and overwinter fine under the ice here.

Same here the large gold one survived in a half barrel for 3 years poor thing. I have 4 small ones in the smaller pond, had not expected them all to survive

Comets (AKA Feeder Goldfish) and Shubunkin are tough fish.
We lost all our Koi last winter to a freak temperature drop.
Temps had been in the 60's then dropped to the low 20's.
If the Koi are taken down in temps slowly. They overwinter fine in water just above freezing.
Water temps dropped by 30° almost overnight. Koi all were still way to active and perished.
The Comets and Shubunkin were all fine.... even 1 inch long Shubunkin babies.

Ric -

How did that happen? I am wondering how such a drop in temps can occur.

Sounds like Florida winter weather, we can be freezing in the morning and running around in tee shirts and shorts by afternoon

Extremely common here, too. I always chalked it up to the desert, but we make no assumptions about temperature from day to day or hour to hour here. It's very hard on plants trying to go dormant in the fall, or waking up to a fake spring.

Just a freak very warm early winter then Nature decided to even it out.
If our pond was, say, 5000 gallons it wouldn't have been a big deal.
At least than 1000 gallons the water temp just dropped like a stone.
Had we known it was coming we would have turned off the pumps.

Henry I feel your pain. This year I decided to be on the pond tour and wanted a Victoria Water Lily. They can't take any chemicals or they die so I decided to clean out my ponds before putting the VWL in. In the process I managed to kill 75 koi(some I had for over 10 yrs) and a catfish that was about 2 1/2' long. I'm still sick. What I did was cleaned the smaller top pond and then started on the bottom pond. It was too messy and I had already filled the top pond the day before and put in the 3n1 water conditioner so I was pretty sure it was safe with chorine. We caught all my fish and put them in the top pond until we could finish the bottom pond. I thought of everything except oxygen. They played beautifully all day. That evening I went to check on them and they were all dead. Lesson learned!!! Oxygen levels are lower at night than during the day. I hope I don't forget this one!!! I have not gotten my pond straight since I cleaned it. The balance is off and just about the time I get it straight it rains. I'm having the same problem with the pool.

Sorry to hear that Jeri!
Playing w/ the chemicals is always a risk.
Do you have a Bio-filter hooked up?

No Ric the water was perfect. I didn't turn the falls on b/c it pulls from the bottom pond and it was dirty. I never thought about the oxygen until after 3 days of crying and then it hit me. Had I thought, I could have done something other than the falls but never even thought about it. I was so concerned with the ph and chlorine.

Sad. Hard Hard Lesson!
One I learned the hard way several times back when we had 15 aquariums going.
All it takes is one slip........

We have added bubblers, underwater plants and a few underwater lines from the pumps to over-oxygenate the weaker areas in our pond. Never lost a fish to too much O2.

When I told my friend at the pet store, she said, OMG your the pro. Talk about feel small.

All I have right now is a small wading pool and an 18 gallon tote.
This is what is in the tote. I believe they are Little Floating Hearts - Nymphoides cordata.

I have been taking pictures of my waterlilies

Beautiful pictures Sandy. You liking that new camera yet?

Droooooling...

Loving it

Such gorgeous pictures.

Sandy - how many times does your camera zoom? Mine is 16X and I don't think I can get that close to the WL.