Advice please?

[j.w]

My first pond had gutter water dripping into it w/no issues and we are in the country also.

 

[CometKeith]

Hi and welcome. Fish breathe through their gills. If there is not enough dissolved oxygen in the pond water they will die because they can't breathe. The larger the fish and the plentiful the fish you have the more there is a need for oxygen. If you want to save the cost of a water pump and equipment you can buy a good air pump instead. It won't help with the filtration, but it will provide oxygen to the pond water. Good luck!

 

[Swarf]

Hi and welcome. Fish breathe through their gills. If there is not enough dissolved oxygen in the pond water they will die because they can't breathe. The larger the fish and the plentiful the fish you have the more there is a need for oxygen. If you want to save the cost of a water pump and equipment you can buy a good air pump instead. It won't help with the filtration, but it will provide oxygen to the pond water. Good luck!

Thanks Keith for the advice, Sorry for the big delay as just seen your reply
I have come to that conclusion to fit an air pump after putting 7 goldfish in and watching them slow down a bit after a week. Do you think an air pump would be better than a fountain to get oxygen into the water?
This make seems to be OK :-
OASE Pontec PondoAir Sets 200, 400, 900, 1800, 3600 LPH Air Pumps The 450 seems good. what do you think? Chris.

 

[CometKeith]

hi. no worries. Anything that keeps the water moving is good. I bought a good air pump on Amazon for under $150. I just suggested it because it might be easier. I have a larger pond than you but I always have 3 or 4 devices creating bubbles and moving water. I hardly ever lose a fish so I'm sure it's the right thing to do. It's going down to zero F tonight and I still have two things running!

 

[GBBUDD]

I still have two things running!

having two smaller items /not saying yours are small... just saying having a backup running incase one fails is a great practice. It can almost insure cutting back on disasters.

 

[GBBUDD]

I love how the pond is sunken . you could use this to your advantage over the heron. you could run fish line across from Bush to bush or tree etc it doesn't need to be tight it just needs to stop the air path of the bird to your pond. Or you could use netting I used golf driving range netting others have used wide weave Ithink it's a foot or so block the walk way with a gate and that should end the heron.

now as for the pump youtube "home made air lift" you get both variation and directional water movement

Now while your wanting too avoid water pumps there is another method using air stones in a PVC piping

 

[poconojoe]

Maybe it's overkill, but here's what I do:
I have an air pump with two large air stones running all year. A 250 watt K&H deicer for the winter. And a (submerged) bucket in the middle with a small (550 gph) pump covered with lava rock that also runs all year. There's a PVC pipe coming out if that small pump ending just below the water surface which creates a fountain.
It can get quite cold here in northeastern PA. If we get long term single digits, the only thing keeping an opening will be the deicer.
A cool looking ice dome can form over the fountain when it's really cold. You can see the water shooting up inside the ice dome.

 

[CometKeith]

having two smaller items /not saying yours are small... just saying having a backup running incase one fails is a great practice. It can almost insure cutting back on disasters.

Agreed! My pond breather stopped working last week because of an electrical issue and I didn't even realize it until several days later... I still had my water and air pumps working. Without them I would have been in real trouble! All three are fully functioning now!

 

[addy1]

We don't need them this year, just six days total that the ponds have had a light layer of ice on them. Warm winter