Dead fish at The Mear

I've heard today that all the fish including the black mirror at The Mear have been found dead. Is this true?

Yes, all the fish, including big Eels, Bream and Tench. Very sad. I've heard is was a crash but other rumours have started. Time will tell.

Warren Gaunt said:

Yes, all the fish, including big Eels, Bream and Tench. Very sad. I've heard is was a crash but other rumours have started. Time will tell.

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That sounds like a disaster Wol, any further information or update on the situation?

It is a disaster mate, a right good looking fish that mirror was too. Am told the huge common that i think was never caught was found dead, and was huge. Fish bleeding from gills, all very sad. All aquatic life dead, thousands of washed up snails.

Could it be ammonia poisoning?

Terrible news that lads.

Blo ody hell, thats tragic news, a carp dying of old age is one thing, the whole system beggars belief

dead snails sounds like poisoning to me have they checked it for copper?

The rumour down this way is that it was a massive algae bloom that de-oxygenated the the water ?
Would it happen that quick , in one big hit or would it take a while , a few fish at a time ?

can happen rapid and i think if its a real badun it can also kill things like snails???

You would have thought the eels might have got out as they can ?

whats "the mear" or rightly where is it?

Colne Mere aka Blackwater Staines/Wraysbury area.

Blue-Green Algae bloom was responsible it seems...

Awful news

That's shocking.Same thing happened to a club lake I belonged to years ago.It was heartbreaking to see.

'The fish can die within minutes of the crash'.

How can a lake suffer such a massive drop in dissolved oxygen so quickly that it takes just minutes for fish to die?

Surely even algae blooms take days, if not weeks, to grow?

And, I don't understand how the eels did not escape either.

I'm no biologist, or scientists of any ilk for that matter, but it all seems very sudden and all-consuming for the suspected cause given.

Very sad news none-the-less.

Poisoned by natural causes, absolutely tragic. Strange how quick and thorough it was, yet nearby waters were unaffected. Worrying thing is that theoretically it could happen anywhere, and there's nothing anyone can do to prevent it.

water as everyone knows is a compound H20 (2 atoms of Hydrogen + 1 atom of Oxygen) it also contains O2 which is the oxygen dissolved in the water and the supply of oxygen that fish and other aquatic creatures use. Most algae blooms are due to an increase in Phosphorus (and possibly Carbon and Nitrates), this is a powerful nutrient which encourages the growth of all plants and particularly algae. Algae consume O2 but have a short lifespan and die and decay in large number, the decaying process also uses up O2. Given a continued supply of Phosphorus the cycle of algae growing and dying continues unabated only exponentially. As the amount of O2 decreases the organisms best suited for survival grow in enormous numbers and also are the last to succumb, in this case the algae, which is why it shows as a visible bloom. By the time this occurs the "higher" lifeforms are either dead or doomed to die unless steps are taken to re-oxygenate the water (fish tanks and ornamental ponds have fountains or pumps to force oxygen to dissolve back in to the water)
They can also produce some absolutely devastating toxins which are completely fatal to all life forms, currently Brittany in France has a major problem in some coastal areas due to the run off of phosphates from intensive pig farming where the algae growing on this nutrient is releasing the toxins in the air when decayed algae are disturbed resulting in a number of human fatalities!
Clearly the problems that came to a head at the weekend have been utterly devastating, resulting in the death of all life forms in the Mere, it is quite possible this tragedy has been a short time in reaching that point with the final moments literally moments. I believe eels like to be deep in the water, possibly in the mud? This may explain the presence of dead eels who could not escape, of course we have no way to tell how many eels DID escape once conditions became untenable. The easiest way to imagine what the fish and other creatures experienced is think of yourself in a space ship and then stepping into the vacuum of space without air.
I cant find much information about the Mere other than it has this mythical aura around it. Specifically due to the Black Mirror. It appears it had been closed for fishing and was designated a SSSI? That makes me think that the EA must have had some kind of monitoring set up, including scientific testing of water? Has anyone visited/fished it? How large was the lake? If there was any hint of poisoning or the usual culprit, industrial discharging, it would hardly help secure a prosecution for Mike Willmott to make statements regarding the matter and quoting an EA officer as to what had happened? Is this the same Mike Willmott who was caught illegally fishing the lake and fined for doing so? Allegedly!!

I'm sure that the club lake of ours that was affected in similar fashion is the same one mentioned by S-Kippy in his last post.
It just so happens that it was me that allerted club officials to the strange behaviour of the fish. Having never seen anything like it before, the penny didn't drop straight away. After walking around the lake several times I became concerned at what I was seeing. At first, to be quite honest, I wasn't even sure what I was seeing. Within a couple of circuits I realised that the fish had become more and more distressed over what was a very short period of time. To make things worse the weather was going through a period of extremely low pressure and was still dropping drastically. Despite the best efforts of the club and EA to get large aerators in place, the lake was devastated. I'm still amazed at the speed of the deterioration of a water this size.
It all seemed to indicate a poisoning/pollution had occurred, even suggestions that aerofuel had been discharged by one of the very low-flying aircraft approaching nearby Heathrow, but it soon became clear that this was obviously not the case.

Lark

Could be but when I say years ago I mean years ago. The lake I'm speaking of was the former Hayes & Harlington AS lake on the Colnbrook by-pass. That subsequently proved to be an industrial pollution but had the same effect...virtually instant de-oxygenation and everything wiped out in minutes. The lake eventually recovered but H&H never got the fishing back...it ended up as a Bowyers water. Willow Pool I think they called it.

Ironically the stream that ran in one side and out t'other which kept the water so clean proved to be its downfall when the eejits up stream decided to dump whatever it was they wanted shot of into the ditch.

I was there watching helplessly as the lake simply died in front of us.Horrible.

Skippy