Need cold weather advice.

[zydia]

Last winter was our first with the pond.  The fish stayed outside and it was cold and frozen, and I hard a long winter thinking about my wet pets and how they were doing. For whatever reason we lost two fish out of maybe 40.

This summer we had babies and they have not gotten very big. Do you think these babies will winter ok? Was just wondering what to expect. Anybody left babies out in the cold.
This picture is the pond last winter.


Zydia

[livetogarden]

Zydia,
I live in Omaha, Nebraska, zone 5. We had tons of baby fish last summer and I left them outside last winter, they weren't very big at the time either. I didn't lose any of them. Just be sure to keep a hole in the pond whenever it ices over. We used either a pond de-icer or a bubbler, it depended on how cold it was out. If it was bitter cold we used the de-icer, otherwise the bubbler apparently did the trick just fine because all the fish lived.
Hope this helps.
Cath