Winter temps

[BlueIce]

Hey all, first post here. :)

I don't have a pond, but my parent's do and this question is from them.

We live in Pennsylvania and the temps this wk are going to be extremely cold.
Below 0 degrees F on some nights.
Their pond is approx 3ft at the deepest area.They have a catfish and a few plain old goldfish in there.(When they bought them they were listed as feeders, so nothing expensive, but still pets anyway).

Anyway, the question is...
can they survive in those extreme temps or should they bring them inside.



(I'm sure as time goes by I'll have a lot more questions from them.They're older folks and old school so please forgive the no research prior to purchase.Trust me we've had a talk about that! lol)

[Peg]

Hi Blueice, and welcome.
If your parents are worried about the pond freezing solid have them get a deicer for the pond. You can pick them up at pond stores , feed stores and some hardware stores. They are not to costly and will help keep the pond open, but not completly free of ice. A air stone can help as well. If the pond is frozen over you can heat a pot of water and put in on top of the ice and it will melt a hole to put the deicer in. Do not break the ice with an ax or hammer. As for the catfish I'm not sure if it should come in, someone who can help on that will be along soon. But I do know that goldfish do ok up my way and we can gat as low as -20 C. Hope that helps.
Peg

[Terri]

!welcome BlueIce

Do you know what kind of catfish? If it's a channel cat (or similar) it 'should' be ok, they are pretty hardy in the Northern areas of the US and lower regions of Canada - they do not take well to sudden temp drops - but most fish don't ;) Several pond keepers here in Ontario have channel cats in their ponds that over winter.
If it's a species native to the southern regions of the US and Mexico... different story.

[Jackie Ramo]

!welcome A hole in the ice for off gasing is the most important thing at this point. Doesn't have to be huge and Peg has covered the options for doing this.

[BlueIce]

Thanks for all the quick and helpful replies!
My mother isn't sure what type of cat.She said it was about 7 inches long, dark gray and had some spots on it.I wonder if it might be a synodontis,but I think the only way to know for sure is to have my father try to net it.



(I have many tanks of cichlids, but know nothing about caring for fish in a pond, seems like an entirely different experience.)

[Terri]

Sounds just like a channel cat. Channel cats get fairly large... adults can reach over 3 feet. Sometimes they are referred to as Spotted catfish or Blue cats. Typically they are blue/grey with small speckly dark spots on the body, there are also albino channel cats - freakish with their pink eyes.
http://www.huntingandfishingjournal.org/images/big_pic_channel_catfish.jpg

Synodontis species shouldn't be kept in 'cold' water, more tropical temps ideally - they wouldn't be happy much below 68F - they probably wouldn't survive the low 40" to high 30F temps of winter.