Hello from MA -- pond newbie with questions

[AmeBee]

Ok 3 things. One, never punch holes in the ice. That is terrible hard on the fish. Two, if you are going to rinse your stones and filter media, do it with pond water, not tap water. The chlorine in the tap water could kill all of the benificial bacteria that have established and you could be setting yourself up for a large ammonia spike. Three, you want to keep a hole open in the water all Winter, for gas exchange. This should be done with a water pump pointed at the surface, an aerator, or a heater. Please don't smash holes in the ice.

Got it. We are very new to this and obviously kind of panicked at this point (only have had about a week or two to deal with all this so far). I have a heater that is going in in about 30 minutes.

 

[dieselplower]

Its all good. Having the pond freeze completely over for a short time is not a problem. The longer it is frozen over, the more poisonous gases will build up, and the less oxygen will be in the water. These are both bad things for the fish. You may find that running a heater all Winter gets expensive. If you have a good amount of disposable income, you mag not find that a problem. Personally, I run a water pump because it is cheaper. I will post a pic of my pond shortly. You can see the pump keeping a hole open. Worked all winter.

 

[dieselplower]

The picture of the very small hole was after a long, windy, and bitterly cold snowstorm. It looks as though the pond is almost completely frozen over but it is actually just a layer of snow mounded over the hole in the pond. I gently touched the snow with a net handle and all the snow collapsed, revealing that there was still a 1' hole open in the ice.

 

[j.w]

If you ever have an emergency where you have nothing to keep a hole in the ice open you can heat a pot of water on the stove and set it on the top of the pond carefully, don't let go of the handle or tie a rope on it and just let it melt a hole in the ice. Course if you are having a really cold spell you might be out there doing that more than you like.

 

[sissy]

You can use one of those small butane torches also .Not the fireplace match lighting kind but one step up .That is what I used in 2010 .I had bought it to bend a pvc pipe .

 

[AmeBee]

I pulled out the heater from the garage (1250w stock tank heater covered in limescale....). Am currently petitioning for an aerator after running a calculation of the cost of running the heater vs air stones and pump... :faint: .

I started a thread on the "winterizing" board if anyone wants to weigh in over there.

 

[dieselplower]

I should have noted in my previous post that all I run is a 300 gallon pump. No air, no heater, no filter.