Brownish water from the fall leaves?

[taherrmann4]

I keep all my fish in my pond all year, my pond is 3' deep. I shut everything off except my aerator which I run all year long even into the winter and this will usually keep a hole in the ice, I also have a deicer that I put into the pond before it gets cold but do not turn on unless it is going to get really cold for an extended period of time to ensure that I can keep a hole in the ice. My aerator will not keep a hole in the ice if it gets really cold in the negatives at night for several days so the deicer is just insurance for me.

 

[sissy]

I kept my water running last winter and the temp was not suppose to drop that night below 40 and this was just before christmas and it really dropped and water froze over and lucky I caught it .There was only a foot of water left in the pond and here temps don't drop that far until January .I live 15 minutes from the North Carolina border .Expect everything and don't be surprised by anything is my motto now

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Yeah but both of you are even further South than I am! Brandonsdad02 is far enough North that the freeze line can get down to the 18" mark without some kind of heater. ANY kind of heater will make a big difference, even a smaller floating-style de-icer. That extra heat, trapped under the ice and combined with the constantly flowing water, may be just the combination needed to keep your pond going all Winter. Obviously you need to keep an air-hole in the ice at all times, and this gives you a point to monitor the condition of the water throughout the Winter. As long as the ice doesn't get more than a few inches thick, you are fine.

 

[sissy]

Thats why I will not do it again and he should maybe rethink leaving it running .better safe than sorry

 

[Shdwdrgn]

A lot depends on how closely you are willing to monitor the pond. My kitchen looks out on the pond, so I take a look first thing every morning when I get up, and with having a new pond and unknown conditions this year, I will especially be paying close attention once we get into our freezing weather. Personally, I absolutely expect to keep the pumps running year-round. Even if the filters aren't providing biological filtration, they still provide some mechanical filtration through the Winter, and I believe every little bit helps to ensure my fish make it safely through the cold. With my new pond, I image if I turned off the pumps, the river area would freeze solid in no time! Fortunately with our strange weather out here, I only have a month or two that I really have to worry about.

 

[taherrmann4]

shdwdrgn,
If I were to do it all over again I would try to make it so that I could keep my pond going all year long as I enjoy looking out at my waterfall and pond every morning. I would bury my lines deeper and mound more dirt up around the top of my falls to insulate the filter more, it currently sticks out about a foot. I would also make it so that I could isolate the creeks flow at the point where they split from the main line, they are currently controlled at the exit point of the two creeks, if I were to shut them off and keep the waterfall going water would stay in that line and definitely freeze over winter. This forum has been great b/c it allows me to gain knowledge and someday when I do decide to do it over again I can fix all mistakes so that I can have the almost perfect pond (if that's possible).

 

[sissy]

actually mulch is a great insulator I also wrap my filter in bubble wrap

 

[CometKeith]

Brandonsdad02, If you get a lot of snow the pond can freeze over even with an air pump going. That happened to us a few times over the winter. I just heat a pot of boiling water and set it on the ice and open up a hole with it. I tried a deicer one year but didn't feel It was worth paying the extra electric to keep it going.

 

[sissy]

last winter was the first time my pond froze up and it did it in the middle of the night and if I had not looked out the window and saw the top layer of ice caved in my fish would have froze ,there was only about a foot of water left in the pond .It happened fast too ,I looked at the pond before I went to bed it had some ice but had open areas and pump seemed fine .But temps plummeted and and pump was knocked side ways and water looked like an ice mountain and the pump by then had burned out .To cold to fast and the whole thing froze over and with winds at 50 and 60 mph the whole pond froze as temps dropped below zero and the day before it was around 45 degrees .It was unbelievable and then the snow blasted down like a blizzard and there I was with a hose running from in side the basement to out side trying to fill the pond so it would not freeze solid and kill the fish .lucky me they are a hardy bunch .Took 3 hours and a lot of work and never again will I go through that ,I got a pond heater and a small back up generator just in case the electric goes out .I was lucky it didn't but that scared me