Angela Wilcox wrote:What is the volume of water in your pond? How many fish did you introduce? How many died off? Was your pond aerated? What was the air and water temperature at the time of die off? What is the proximity of the nettles to the pond edge?
Without aeration, the heat of the summer, volume of fish/water can lead to oxygen deprivation and die-off.
We are growing the nettles in hydroton in halved barrels, water is pumped up through pvc pipes from totes below holding the goldfish. There are two connected totes each holding 50 gallons for 100 total gallons, and they contained 50 total goldfish. All fish died. We had heat and aeration, though we weren't monitoring too closely so we can't be sure nothing malfunctioned. This system functioned fine through 4 seasons before the die off, which occurred a few months after nettles were introduced.
I know I'm asking a question that introduces a lot of speculative variables that I don't have answers to because of poor tending, but I'm hoping some one would be able to shed light on whether it is likely that the chemicals that make nettle stingy became bioavailble and harmful to the fishes.
