i think i killed my fish

Q

quick061

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Nov 19, 2002
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ok, today was the big day that i was going to move my bass from one house to my apartment 4 hours away. i got a big tub that was about the size of his 20g tank, moved him and his water into it, added a little dechlor and ice because it was about 90 degrees in the bed of my truck.

however, when i got up to my apartment i went to check on my fish and discovered i had a fish popsicle instead. the temperature in his tub was down really low, the fish was leaning on its side and his fins almost felt frozen. he was even tring to roll belly-up. the problem was when i stopped for gas mid way thru i got another bag of ice, not realizing that it wasn't hot enough to actually need it. so instead of just keeping the water cool it got it way too cold.

discovering my fish pop i brought the tub in, dumped out some of the cold water and added some luke-warm water from his large aquarium that i am setting up for him. i didn't do too much, probably about 10-15% because i didn't want to bring the temp up too fast.

so now i've put him back into his small old aquarium and everything and he seems to be ok, moving all of his fins and swimming a bit.

so what i want to know is if there's anything else i can do? i figure if he can make it until the morning he stands a pretty good chance of surviving but i don't know. any advice would be great.
 
I learned this lesson while actually fishing for largemouth bass that I wanted to put in my farm pond. After catching the fish and puting them into buckets we put the left over ice in the buckets with fish and when we got home there was some very cold fish almost like a 'fishsicle'. We were able to revive most of the fish by swishing them back in forth in the pond. This causes forced water through thier gills, since the fish were not able to breath on thier own. We've done this methond many, many times for one reason or another when tranpsport fish to another farm pond. Most of the fish survive and the ones that didn't found they way into the frying pan at supper time. Even thou your fish recovered you'll need to watch it over the next couple of days.
 
The problem is that water has a very latent heat of fusion - in other words, a lot of energy is required to melt ice. Where does this come from? The water, of course. Therefore, in melting ice a lot of heat energy is drawn out of the surrounding water. The practical upshot of this is that ice is very good at cooling water.

As you found.
 
On the upside, since bass are generally cold water fish and very used to winterey waters I would think he'll probably be ok.

His pampered bass should adapt :)

DrD
 
its a largemouth that's about 2.5 years old and just over a foot long.

i just checked on it this morning and although he hasn't started eating yet he seems fine. all of his fins are up and he's responding pretty well. i'm not too worried about him not eating though, i'm sure he will start sometime in the next couple of days.
 
yes that was my mindset at the time also. but what i realized later was that in nature the change is usually with the season and takes anywhere from days to months. its not the same as it happening in hours.
 
Which goes to show you aren't from anywhere cold. :)

The temp here can drop from 60 to below freezing in a few hours. On small waters, that means it will drop 15+ degrees an hour, especially if the wind is whipping around.

Granted, it's not a good thing to do to a fish, but it does happen in the wild. The biggest problem for fish in the winter is when the surface completely freezes over. Eventually the water becomes oxygen deprived and this kills fish quickly. That, or the formation of frazil ice (very small ice crystals, usually in smaller streams) which clogs and freezes the gill tissue.
 
One question... How are you able to legally keep that fish? In TN, where I'm from, no wild game fish may be kept in captivity unless you have a permit, and those are only for farmers generally... Just curious, cuz I would expect the CA laws to be even more strict cuz of all the granola (fruits and nuts) that write your eco-protection laws out there...
 
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