Cold Snap Over

Most of the northeast has been experiencing colder than average temperatures over the past few weeks. On the farm in Central Florida temperatures dropped to below freezing for several nights in a row! Even though I am from Boston I was unable to handle the cold and quickly purchased a space heater - I had to go to a few different stores because they were selling out so quickly.

For the most part the animals on the farm were fine. The chickens and ducks did not seem to suffer too greatly from the cold and the routines for their care did not change. The tilapia were a different story. From feeding times to constant monitoring of water temperatures, fish care became a way more intensive process.

This video shows the fish feeding on a normal day. They would be up near the surface, "begging' for food but in the colder temperatures they do not venture farther than about a foot from the bottom. We pump the water out of the pens (irrigating the fields) while pumping in warm water (about room temp). This takes most of the day but by the early afternoon the water is warm and the fish can be fed.

The cold snap had passed (it'd been about two days of regular temperatures) and I thought the danger had as well. But while i was draining the water I saw a fish floating near the surface in one of the pools. I have seen videos where flash frozen fish are put in water and come back to life so I just watched it float for about 5-10 minutes. It was very dead though, no doubt about that. I took it out and left it in a bucket of water for my supervisor to check out. I was pretty terrified that it was the start of a chain reaction, but he said that it was just the cold. We found one more dead in the other pool. I read an article online that said thousands of fish had washed ashore on FL beaches after the cold snap and this also helped to calm my fears.

I want to research and make a post about challenges of maintaining fish, but for now I am just happy that there were only two casualties.