I have a bad situation

So like many we are experiencing extreme drought. My pond is almost dry but it still had what I thought was enough to keep the fish alive. I was wrong and sometime today a fish kill started.

I need ideas how to best use these fish to or at least some of them to some benefit. I have a small amount of spoil hay that I pile up of what falls outside the hay ring that I could use to mix in for composting a fair number.

Myself and my son are pretty devastated at the moment and want to give these fish a proper send off instead of letting it all go to waste.

Any ideas very much appreciated  

How about Fish emulsion?

Any tips on how to make that?

There was a discussion about it at this link: https://permies.com/t/49147/composting/Fish-Emulsion-ve-share-experience

Hey Joe. That's a lousy situation.

Planting a dead fish under a young tree, or under a potato plant, is a time-honoured method of ensuring that things are not wasted.

Joe, I am really sorry to hear about your fish. I could certainly understand how y'all would feel devastated.

A mentor of mine once told me that the best thing to do with a creature's body once they've left it is to return it to something they would've enjoyed or would want to be a part of. If it weren't for the being in a drought part, I'd suggest planting them along with trees near the pond's edge so that they would shade the water and keep it cooler in the future. Hope you find a good way to honor the fish and that you get rain soon!

I actually tried the fish under tomatoes trick many YouTubers telling the amazing amount of Tomatoes you can harvest.

The outcome is Bull**** when it comes to "this is the ultimate solution"
(words like this will make more people clicking the video, hence the YouTuber makes more $$$$)

BUT

At least a dead fish is as good as many other fertilizers as we didn't find any difference.
Some fish tomato plants were stronger and some were thin and the same counts for real fertilizers.

It all depends of the plant itself same like humans.
Some are naturally born strong and muscle packed and some you can x-ray with a tea candle.

But burial your dead fish under a tomato plant is sure no waste, you will harvest tomatoes.....

Joe, I am sorry to hear about the loss of your fish.

When we bought our property the property came with a nice large deep pond.  The previous owner used a technique that a lot of ranchers use to keep their ponds.

A timer is set up to send water to the pond once or twice a day.

Since we no longer use this technique, we no longer have a pond.

I have heard from many old-timers that if I want a great garden plant some fish.

This threads has offered some great suggestion so I hope some of them will benefit you and others.

I have read the linked thread (thank you) and done some research online about making emulsion. The previous owner left a few 35hp l barrels that I can use assuming the aren’t cracked or something.

Most recipes called for 3 parts sawdust and 1 part fish plus some sugar.

I have no access to large amounts of sawdust so can the spoiled hay be used as a substitute?

I can probably get some sawdust from a cabinet maker buddy of mine but it’s hit or miss on the amount he will currently have. I have the hay right here on site.

Edit- just talked to buddy he thinks he has 4-5 55gal drums full of dust. They guy who normally gets it hasn’t been by in a while so he gonna call me back in a few. However I’d still like to know if the hay would work if this doesn’t pan out.

Thanks

Thanks

I can't think of a reason the spoiled hay wouldn't work. I also don't think it needs to be complicated or follow any "proper" recipes. Without knowing the volume of fish and material you have I think I would just dig a shallow hole or trench, maybe put some of the hay or anything else I had on hand like grass, weeds, even small tree branches and pile the fish on top. Cover it all up with some soil and more hay or whatever, just enough to cover it and help keep odors down.

Here, we have lot of critters that might try to dig into it so if I didn't have enough material and soil to cover it good, I might run some fence around it.  I wouldn't care that much if critters got in and stirred it around as long as they couldn't drag it off and scatter it. This might sound like just disposing of the fish, but I expect after a period of time, nutrient rich soil could be harvested as needed for use in the garden.

Another option if it's possible for you would be to just bury the fish a foot or more deep in the garden or in a spot to later become garden.  

Well the barrels I had don’t have lids only the small holes to fill with liquid. So I blended up 10 fish and mixed with water and poured it around my garden.

The remainder got layered into the spoiled hay pile every foot or so then piled up 2-3 foot as a top layer to cover it all.

I expect I’ll be pulling more out over the next few days and will deal with them in some sort of positive way as it comes.

Worst day as a homesteader to date.

That's a sucky situation.   Just curious ....do you feel the fish kill is from lack of oxygen or did the water got too hot from being so shallow/no shade?  

If it's an oxygen thing,  maybe there's a feasible way of aerating the pond somehow?

Not sure if it's worth the expense, but I've always found those pond fountains very relaxing to watch, especially when they light up at night.

Hope you get some rain soon!

I think it’s due to both. I do plan on setting up an aerator in the future but there’s no point in rushing it. Best case it gets some rain in the fall but in 3-4 weeks tops it will be dry unfortunately.

This is actually the reason I drilled a well. And that was a awesome experience too. The driller lied about the production and now have a 7000$ hand washing station that should’ve just been plugged at drilling and I would’ve saved 5k.

It would be really great if you report back on some of the things you try, Joe.

1. "Blended" fish sytem: Did you get any stink from the Blended up fish watered down?  If you got minimal smell after 48 hours, I'd call that one a win. Did you just use a typical house blender for the job?

2. Spoiled hay system:  Hay is much higher in nitrogen than straw or sawdust. Fish are also high in nitrogen, so if you start to get stinking in that pile the two things you could try are adding chopped up cardboard or topping the whole pile with some soil. If it's just a "fishy" smell, that's not necessarily a big issue, but the idea of compost is to hold onto the nutrients and if you smell ammonia, that's the nitrogen heading off into the atmosphere rather than turning into great compost.

3. Barrel system: Yes, finding the barrels with lids that either screw on or clamp on is not easy. If you don't have a use for them the way they are, we have cut out the top before using a drill to start a hole then a scroll/saber/reciprocating saw type tool to cut a circle about an inch in from the edge. Finding a fake it lid is a bit trickier. I got the base from  a propane heater that I adapted for a lid for a barrel compost, and a lid from a round charcoal BBQ that I used for a second. We've also used wood to make a "topper" for a barrel which doesn't seal the top, but gives me a flat spot to work on as a high table, however, you probably don't want it tightly sealed as you'd want gas exchange.

I have no solution, but wanted to say how sorry I am that you're going through this. Praying for good rain in your location.

Surprisingly the gathering of the fish were the worst part. Once I blended them ( with the cheapest blender at Walmart bought for making mushroom slurries) the smell was somewhat bearable.

The worst part for me was the flies as these set over night at them minimum. So smell plus the fly sound triggered me.

So far no smell detected in the hay. It’s been sitting there for a while just piled up however it definitely wasn’t 100% dry / brown. I will continue to monitor it over the next few days. And there will be more fish to deal with. Some of which I intend to bury in fallow garden beds.

Hey Joe,

These things happen.  

The fish are a high nitrogen source, so mixing them with carbon is your ticket, lots of carbon like your old hay, or wood chips, cardboard, etc.,  You get the drift.  I once heard Joel Salatin say they bury their dead farm animals in wood chips and not even the bones survive the microbes, and they even get compost to boot.  You are on the right track.  

Sorry about your fish loss.  I'm a fish keeper so understand what it might mean to you and your son.  I'm wondering what kinds and how much vegetation, if any, there was in the pond.  As you know, warm water holds less dissolved oxygen and if there are too many submerged plants (or algae), at night both fish and plants are respiring using up oxygen, which often is the cause of a pond fish kill.  Even if it wasn't a quick kill, oxygen deprivation stress may lead to lower immunity followed by disease.  For future reference, I would suggest having a very deep pond (less evaporative loss) with lots of emergent plants in shallow areas or floating plants and no submerged types to get around oxygen problems as well as to eliminate fish waste ammonia/nitrate build-up.  Of course, as has been mentioned, shade trees or even lots of flat overhanging rocks (a dock or a boardwalk?) along the shoreline can help keep water temps down and reduce evaporation a little.  Also as mentioned, a solar aerator would really help oxygen levels and water quality.  I like to use medium-sized clumping bamboo (not a water plant) around the south end of a small pond as they don't drop leaves as much during the fall.  A bubbling rocky stream (via a recirculating pump) into the pond is another way to get more oxygen in the water, and is helpful for birds and other critters.  Finally, I'm also wondering what kind of fish you had.  Food fish?  Pets?  Tilapia are quite tolerant of low oxygen levels, whereas any stream fish (e.g. trout) require high oxygen levels. Any fish in the carp family, including goldfish and koi, are able to gulp air at the surface.  I'd follow the guidelines for fish stock density per pond surface area or volume so there's no overcrowding, which under stressful conditions will lead to disease.  If you're keeping food fish, harvest as needed to keep ideal densities.  Under hot or low water conditions, also reduce the population size.  Lastly, just as in terrestrial permaculture we abhor monocultures the same is true for aquatic systems.  A biodiverse fish and plant community is better able to withstand or recover from stressful conditions.  Hope you can one day have another fish pond.

Joe Hallmark wrote:

The worst part for me was the flies as these set over night at them minimum. So smell plus the fly sound triggered me.
.

I put some fish in a large clay pot with half soil. After a day of fly laying eggs I covered with staw. 3 days later the fly larva buried themselves in the soil. Then I feed the larva to my birds.

I did not have a lot of water plants just a few cattails. I have looked into putting some more aquatic plants but at this point it’s definitely going to go dry until hopefully rain comes in the fall.

The fish I put were bluegill, golden shiner, fathead minnows( pretty sure they were all eaten), and largemouth bass. 3-4 catfish found there way in and around 15 carp which I had no idea of. I’ve caught the catfish a time or two.

I hadn’t started harvesting any fish as they were still establishing and well below pound per acre limits( when full)

The fish buried in hay and the ground up fish/ water mix caused no smell. However the fish I buried didn’t smell to me but apparently did after a day or two to a raccoon or something because they got dug up mostly.

No significant other losses so far. Trying to find someone who might want them in there pond. But not knowing 100% why this happened no takers so far. The hay mixture seems like my best bet so far.

I was going to suggest the same thing Rudy did... you can put some fish in a bucket with holes placed to allow flies in to lay eggs.  Make sure there is a "ramp" from the level of the dead fish up to at least one hole that the larvae can crawl out of after they have fed for awhile.  Hang the bucket up in your chicken run, and the birds will gobble up the larvae that fall out of the bucket hole(s).  Alternatively you could collect the larvae and feed them back to your remaining live fish.  

I don't know how close your house is to the pond, but could you save greywater from your home and add it to the pond?  If you use all natural/organic cleaning and hygiene products and don't take drugs, this shouldn't hurt your fish too much (depending on the size of your remaining pond) and is surely better than the pond drying completely up.  Bath/shower water, clothes-washing water, etc would certainly slow the drying up of your pond and maybe make it last until a rain replenishes it.  That would be a good excuse to economize on laundry soap, shampoo, dish soap, cleaning products, etc. to keep those levels as low as possible in your greywater that goes to the pond.  Since I didn't see anyone else mention this perhaps there is some contra-indication I don't know about... but if the alternative was losing my fish, I'd certainly try it!

When I lived in Sitka, Alaska, the city got a grant for a large-scale composting project. They had a lumber mill, (with sawdust as waste,) and several fish processing plants, (with fish heads and guts as waste.) They combined the two problems into a great solution. The high-carbon wood balanced the high-nitrogen fish, and the result was odor-free, high-nutrient compost.

A pond  might well have more fish than you can find barrels for, while a composting operation can be any size.

Where I live, hot dry weather means wildfire risk. You can lower your fire risk by limbing-up tall trees, thinning stands that are too crowded (which improves tree health)and eliminating brushy growth near your home.

If there are no tree services in the area who can give you wood chips, renting a chipper/shredder might be a great way to make your home safer and improve forest health while making the best possible use of a heartbreaking fish die-off.

If any are remotely alive. Butcher and put in the freezer. I agree with the emulsion as well.

Joe, if you still have fish left I want to offer a simple solution:

Dry the fish by spreading them in the sun or use a dehydrator.

After the fish are dried thoroughly, use that (clean) blender to pulverize them into a powder so the fish can be easily used through out the year.

Looking at the posts here, I can see a variety of images in people's minds, as far as scale.

Many of the posts here offer excellent ways of dealing with a few fish, say up to 50. Others would deal with more. Quite a few panfish would fit in a 50-gallon drum.

Living in the arid west where any pond worth the effort of building has to be large to last the season, (and having been a commercial fisher) I was thinking one would have to be prepared to handle hundreds or perhaps thousands of fish. I like a solution that is scalable. Composting can handle from 3 to 3000 fish--or 30,000 if you have the space and carbon.

Got me thinking that scale is an integral part of any problem, and any solution. Probably a good habit when framing questions or problems and imagining solutions is to think about the scale you have to deal with, and at what scale the nature of the problem would change.

My other thought is that usually fish die from lack of oxygen before they actually get stranded by lack of water. Heating (as the water gets shallower) depletes the available oxygen. Eutrophication is often the culprit as well--the addition of more nutrients, and thus more microorganisms trying to breathe, than the water can support. So unless there is some kind of setup to oxygenate the water and remove nutrients, graywater could possibly make the problem worse. Graywater is not just water, but a slurry of water, fibers, skin cells, oils, soil, and surfactants keeping them in suspension.  (Whether it's yucca root or Palmolive, a surfactant will change the properties of the water, and may itself be a nutrient.) to add graywater to a pond, you'd want to make it run a gauntlet of plantings and possibly little waterfalls or bubblers to extract nutrients and add oxygen.

 Since the other permies have done a decent job of covering what to do with the dead fish, and aeration (heating liquids causes gasses to come out of solution more readily - that's some 3rd grade physics, but its still true!)  I'll take a stab at the root problem:  water loss to evaporation.  Three trees that should be found on the banks of a pond are Alder, Cottonwood, and Willow:  They will provide shade for the pond (at least along the banks - pond sizes vary, but keep in mind, that shade band is also an edge) and other benefits:  Bugs for the fishies to eat, and convenient places to harvest from.  The Willow has other uses like basket making, charcoal, paper making, and medicine.  Cottonwood is a fine fodder tree with leaves that are higher in protein than most grains, as well as having similar medicinal properties to willow, useful for rooting hormone, and who doesn't enjoy seeing the cottonwood down floating through the air on an afternoon?  Alder is the tree that should have been replanted (along with other species of course) after the logging industry swept across the central US a century ago.  To give the people of the time some credit, they just did not know what we know now:  Members of the Alnus genus can form mycorrhizal associations with both arbuscular and ecto mycorrhizae, making them potential hubs in a well networked ecosystem These water-loving trees are fast growing, an excellent source of biomass, and nitrogen fixing to boot.  IF your pond Ph tends a bit high, the cones dropped by mature alders can help lower it gently - which is why they are valuable for aquarium owners as well (get a profitable yield!) They take several days to sink, so if you DON'T want to buffer your Ph, there is plenty of time to scoop them out.  Drop them in the place where you have your blueberries and wintergreen planted, or bag them up for sale.

 On to the surface!  Water Lily, Duckweed, and Azolla:  Nymphaea odorata, the white American Water Lily will grow in water up to 5-6 feet deep, provide shade and shelter for the fishies, and attract beetles and flies which are also good for the froggies and fishies to num on.  The buds are edible to us, too .. pickled or cooked.  Lemna Minor and Gibba have been received plenty of attention on forums like this, so I'll only add that they are useful for free floating shade in addition to their already well-known attributes.  Azolla is an interesting aquatic:  It does not reproduce at the rate of Lemna, but it can still reproduce fairly fast under the right conditions.  Good for feeding fishies that enjoy a little veggie gnosh now and then, and does an adequate job of soaking up fish waste - but Azolla has another trick up its sleeve:  It can make its own nitrogen .. so if one finds that one has too much azolla, all one needs to do is scoop it out, and place it wherever additional fertilizer is desired.  Finally, all of these aquatic plants take up the nitrate in the water, reducing its availability to algae, which prevents algae blooms .. which can rob the fishies of oxygen, especially when it is hot out.

Jason Avers wrote:  Since the other permies have done a decent job of covering what to do with the dead fish, and aeration (heating liquids causes gasses to come out of solution more readily - that's some 3rd grade physics, but its still true!)  I'll take a stab at the root problem:  water loss to evaporation.  Three trees that should be found on the banks of a pond are Alder, Cottonwood, and Willow

Alder is the great nitrogen-fixer and nurse tree of the northwest. In Alaska it's only non-coniferous tree available in many parts of the Southeast Ak rainforest. When I lived there, it was the only tree available to me for coppicing, and the only one that made charcoal rather than just burning quickly into ash....When nothing else was available, it was used in the past by blacksmiths for forging.  The leaf mould makes a great addition to seed-starting mixes, a great soil conditioner or mulch, and I have used it the dry leaves as chicken bedding as well. Started most easily from seeds, which need sun to sprout. They bide their time in the soil until a clearcut or avalanche or falling tree creates a bit of sun, then sprout quickly. With nitrogen-fixing roots and a yearly mulching of leaves, they enrich the soil and provide a shady nursery bed for the conifers that need shade and rich soil in order to sprout. Eventually, the conifers overtop them and shade them out.

Cottonwoods can get very large, and very thirsty. I would think that they might consume a small pond, but as with anything, balance is key. All of these trees do drink the water, but their shade prevents the water from just dissipating into the air, and draws so much more life and health to the area that it is a net gain. However, it is necessary to keep the scale of things in mind and try to find the balance point. Leaves are used all the ways alder is. The buds make the best burn ointment I know of, and the tree will coppice readily. It is not good firewood, but works well for hugel beds. Roots easily--I have seed cottonwood sticks that were floating in salt water root when rinsed off and shoved into moist ground.

Willow is too well-known to need much comment, but I would try to find local species. Cuttings root readily--any stick you shove into moist ground will root. There are hundreds of willow species, varieties, and sub-species. A local one will be attuned to the climate, whereas one from Britain, (like the weeping willow) is likely to need more water and expect more rain.

All of these trees are pioneer species, so they have evolved with many mechanisms to enrich the area and increase biodiversity. It is their job to kick-start a living community around themselves.