Aerator and bottom heater?

[callingcolleen1]

Charlie, Are winters here can be long and cold, but not has long and hard as Edmonton, where they seldom see a Chinook. We had another little Chinook late last night, was plus 5 c when I went to bed, but by morning it was minis 8 c. We can get long cold periods of minus 30 to 40c as well, and our winters are much much MUCH worse than yours way down there in Texas, Right now my pond has lots of ice and our ground is froze quite hard, everything here is dead. How much ice does your pond have? Probally none! You barely even freeze at night right now! Were lucky if our day time high gets to above freezing right now! My pond has a couple inches of ice on the bottom pond right now. Winter does not begin until winter equinox, which is Dec 21! This is still fall!

 

[callingcolleen1]

Current temperatures:

EDMONTON reporting in at -16 c,
MEDICINE HAT currently - 5c,
DELHART Texas is +13c right now!!

Tomorrows for cast highs:

Delhart forcast +20c,
Medicine Hat -2c,
Edmonton -13c.

 

[MitchM]

Well, I picked up and put in a heater on Saturday night, it opened up a hole in the 3" thick ice by Sunday morning, I got a temp probe to the 5' bottom and it is reading 39F/4C, so I'm happy about that.
Temp outside is -13c.

 

[crsublette]

Our Winters don't start to get cold till sometime in December and coldest in January then we thaw out in February. I am quite fortunate to have the Winters we have here. My area is a semi-arid high plains zone by the way.

Charlie, Are winters here can be long and cold, but not has long and hard as Edmonton, where they seldom see a Chinook. We had another little Chinook late last night, was plus 5 c when I went to bed, but by morning it was minis 8 c. We can get long cold periods of minus 30 to 40c as well, and our winters are much much MUCH worse than yours way down there in Texas, Right now my pond has lots of ice and our ground is froze quite hard, everything here is dead. How much ice does your pond have? Probally none! You barely even freeze at night right now! Were lucky if our day time high gets to above freezing right now! My pond has a couple inches of ice on the bottom pond right now. Winter does not begin until winter equinox, which is Dec 21! This is still fall!

Yep, very well understood that many pages ago as you have mentioned it relentlessly, over and over like a fella bragging about a new tool to his buddy or something. I have not yet read how the zone2 Winters have defied the facts of ponding. Maybe ya might just teach me something. Looking forward to it. It's the reason I continue to read these things.

If anything ... it would be more interesting to read about keeping a pond in Death Valley in California; I know they have a very nice golf course, which is crazy.

 

[brandonsdad02]

I think we are having one of those chinooks today. It didn't really cool off much last night. Had a high of 52 yesterday and woke up to 56 this morning at 4:45. Not normal at all for Iowa. We should have several inches of ice on the lakes by now.

 

[callingcolleen1]

We had freezing rain, everything covered in ice, people were sliding everywhere yesterday. Charlie I am not bragging about the weather here, I would just love to enjoy your warm temperatures and sunshine, instead here we chase the sun, looking for a warm spot to sit and enjoy the sun! You did mention that my weather was not that cold and likened my weather to yours, I was just pointing out that even though we do get Chinook, we do also get cold extremes. It would be nice to have a really warm winter, tired of the cold and the snow. I remember years ago we had many winters with not much snow, and people were still driving their motor bikes at Christmas. I wishing for a nice warm Christmas, not freezing anything, could happen! My friend said she saw Robins down at Police Point Park the other day, so maybe they know something we don't know, maybe winter won't be so bad!

 

[MitchM]

Not sure what to make of the pond temp this morning. Probe 5' depth is reading +46F/+7.7 C. Should the bottom be varying that much in temperature? - from the +39F from last night?
Outside temp is now up to +30F/-1C.

 

[crsublette]

You did mention that my weather was not that cold and likened my weather to yours....

Your weather right now is what our weather normally is during most of Winter and this is why I mentioned that it has not been much different than my area. What I said exactly in that post was ... "Even though the patterns are different, it is not much different than our Winters here. Now, Winter is still early here so things can get much worse for all of us."

I think we are having one of those chinooks today. It didn't really cool off much last night. Had a high of 52 yesterday and woke up to 56 this morning at 4:45. Not normal at all for Iowa. We should have several inches of ice on the lakes by now.

I hear ya man. We are definitely not having a typical Winter one bit at all. It was 50*F this morning and it is Dec 1st !!! Crazy ... nothing normal about this Winter at all for my area. We're experiencing a Florida Winter. Not working well for us on our hard red Winter wheat since it is suppose to go dormant by now, but with the warm temperatures, it keeps on growing so unfortunately we have to keep on irrigating as it is grow so it needs to go dormant soon so I can save some money.... these years lately have been too costly due to the abnormally warm weather and two year severe drought and it appears this next year might be just as dry. It seems many folk here are having abnormally warm Winters.

 

[MitchM]

Our climate is changing. I think we can expect the weather not to be like it used to be for a long time to come.

 

[crsublette]

Funny thing. 2009-2010 Winter was the best we had with a huge blizzard and rest of 2010 we got around 16 inches of annual precipition; we didn't have to irrigate much at all. Winters of 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 has been warm, dry WInters for us and looks like this year is starting out to be the same. Supposedly, last I heard a few days ago, La Nina is over with and we're now in a neutral transition period between La Nina and El Nino ... grrr, wish El Nino would show up already.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Sorry about that, never been to Texas, only to Los Vegas once, long time ago, and Montana, hard to believe you guys so far south get horrid winters. I had imagined you guys swimming all year round and having fun in the sun!

 

[waynefrcan]

I got a reading also of 39F at 4'. 46F seems strange with solid ice cover but for a small heater opening. How large open ice area now?

 

[waynefrcan]

I saw one large goldfish by the 2' depth 2nd aeration spot. It has lots of white fluffs all over it, or it's ice crystals? Can't see closeup of it. And what is it doing at the wrong end of the pond where water is 8 degrees colder? Stupid fish!

 

[callingcolleen1]

Sorry to hear about that Wayne, I think that could be fungus. If fish is injured or sick, it can get that. Did you see fungus anywhere else, like rocks, or the other fish? It may only be on one fish, or everywhere. If the heater can keep open large pools of water, the sun could shine better through to the fish, that may be why he was in the shallow end, looking for a warm sunny spot to heal. The sun would help lots.

 

[MitchM]

I saw one large goldfish by the 2' depth 2nd aeration spot. It has lots of white fluffs all over it, or it's ice crystals? Can't see closeup of it. And what is it doing at the wrong end of the pond where water is 8 degrees colder? Stupid fish!

Wayne, have a look at this PDF: http://northidahokoi...epingspring.pdf

I came across it the other day and it seems to have some good information, including "Cold Water Fungus" starting on page 10.
The PDF also addresses the topic of adding salt that we were talking about in the other thread.

My open area is about 2 feet across now, but it sometimes closes up while the heater is in it's off mode. I can't see the bottom where the probe is. I put a weight on it, but maybe the fish are playing some kind of trick on me. I hate it when they do that.