Hi! First of all, I want to thank all of you for the things I've learned during 3 years of lurking in these forums. 3 years ago I was given a bag of one-inch comet/common goldfish from someone who visited the county fair on it's last night and rescued the fish from being dumped in a ditch as the fair was packing up to move on. It was a steep learning curve for me, but 2 of them survived and are now living outside in a 64-gallon above-ground pond. This will be their first winter outdoors. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area in California where it rarely freezes. I understand that they should not be fed once the water temperature gets below 55 degrees. I'm assuming that I can and should continue partial water changes (as long as I can match water temperature) and also continue filter maintenance. Is this correct? Also, I'm curious as to what the fish will be doing? The water will easily get down to 45 degrees or so, possibly lower. Will they probably be swimming around a little? I've purchased some fake lily pads to float on the top after the hyacinths and duckweed die...it seems to me they would feel more secure that way. Also I'm thinking of providing some kind of underwater shelter (like maybe a big terra cotta pot laying on it's side) for some shelter during the rain storms. Sorry for the long post, and thanks again (on behalf of Scarface and Butterball) for all the information on this great website.

Roxanne

Your setup sounds good and I would say they should be fine outdoors all winter. I live in the CA Central Valley and have overwintered ours for years with no problems. And yes, continuing regular maintenance and filter cleaning is fine.

Ours are much, much less active in the wintertime and usually hang out near the bottom. Sometimes on warmer days they will come up to the surface but I still dont feed when the water is below about 55º.

Hope this helps a bit and welcome to Kokos.

Yes, that helps a lot. Thank you!

Sounda about right to me. I live in Southern California so it's warmer than you - but there's a week or two where the water stays in the high 40s.

I have a cinderblock on end with bog plants potted on top. They just drift around, swim slowly, sometimes hang out in the cinderblock.

I had one who would get in the shallow area between the black gravel on top of the bog plant pot and the surface. The sun would warm that water up I guess.