I'm so upset! Two dead Koi! l

[brokensword]

and...


All truth passes through three stages.
First, it is ridiculed.
Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident

Schopenhauer

 

[sissy]

I think this is the first year she covered hers ,I am not saying it is bad just not for everyone .I know what works for me and prefer it .I do not get sold on anything bad or good ,I ask questions .You also cannot show proof it works except for the reviews .I get wind up on the hill here that blows snow into my pond and it is raised and never had a pond heater freeze over .I can also leave it plugged in and switch it off and on from inside the house .Pond heater has never failed me yet but I failed it once .

 

[Tula]

@AngelaM , You asked if I have pictures and I'll look for some. I did post pictures here last winter, but not sure which thread. Take a look at @callingcolleen1 videos, as I think you could easily use cattle panels as a structure for your cover....and it might look a good deal better then mine ! LOL

I own and use a Pond Breather, along with some other things. My first Pond Breather stopped working when it developed a crack. Dr. Fosters and Smith stood behind it and replaced it immediately and I've not had any further problems with it.

 

[Gemma]

Sorry you lost your koi

 

[cas]

Sorry to hear about your fish. I know as soon as the ice and snow melted I was out checking to see if my fish were OK.

Like @Tula , I am using the pond breather along with an aerator. In addition to being back-ups for one another, the aerator helps melt the ice sooner in the spring and the pond breather circulates the deeper water, which I have noticed is keeping the water clearer. I also don't have to run out with boiling water trying to open a hole when the pond totally freezes over since I have the pond breather.

The one thing I did want to mention is the first year I noticed that the water was freezing in the tube of the pond breather and then @MitchM mentioned that sometimes the heating element gets pulled away from the tubing. I checked, and that was it. I used zip ties to secure the heating element next to the tubing and this year I did not have any problems.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Colleen's pond setup works well because:
-The pond is in an area protected from high winds
-The pond is covered which increases humidity and eliminates heat loss from evaporation
-The pond is well filtered and has circulating water.

That's it. No magic or secrets and completely explainable from available heat loss calculators.



There is no blame assigned to anything or anyone until the facts are known.

I have no idea how many pond breathers have been returned as defective. Do you?

.

Ponds were not always covered and in fact I just started covering them because the new upper pond holds very large volume of water as it is a 5 foot deep hole. If i did not use a real heater the ponds would be frozen solid. Like everybody's. We have very harsh winters some years and this year we had lots of very cold days of minus 40 below. There is no comfort from -40 below even if I have shelter from wind. My ponds would not work with that deicer as it jusy would not have the strength to keep an adequate hole open and like I once said, years ago they had a similar deicer that failed terrible and that year I worked at a greenhouse wbere we sold them, and people in Medicine Hat were very mad as their ponds froze solid.
The real reason I have success is because I use a method that I came up with, and has worked very well since 1991.

 

[callingcolleen1]

I personally would never use that pond breather as it should only be rated to minus 10 Celsius. You could not pay me enough to use that pond breather in this part of the world. Some people can get away with using it as they have milder winters, where as here in Medicine Hat the ground will be frozen to at least 4 feet down if not more, with the severe weather we have had. Some years the ground has frozen down below 6 feet and I get the same arctic blast the Mitch gets. We are both in the same province and both suffer from very extreme weather.

I did try to warn everybody that those pond de-icers would not be adequate for severe winters and I have seen many people in this town fail very badly over the 27 years I have had a pond. I am just about the only person left in this Canadian town that still winters their ponds. My system is different than everybody else's pond set up. My ponds are comprised of four levels that are all connecting and the bottom pond is just for small goldfish and marsh plants. The upper ponds are part built up above ground as there is no benefit to having your pond all below ground as the ground freezes very deep, and when spring comes the build up ponds defrost very quick because they are not stuck completely below the frozen hard ground, and the water level in the upper ponds is always at the same level, and that wears the ice down with running water eating the ice away. Most ponds are just one level with the lowest pond at one level, then comes winter and the ice forms, and the water drops below the ice and then you get a massive ice shell. You can still use a heater during the harshest part of your winter, but it is most important to have a good supply of running water near the heater, to evenly heat the hole pond.

Currently my heater is not plugged in as the days are getting longer and the sun is getting stronger. There is some ice on my pond, but it is thin ice as the running water at the ice level keeps the ice thin.

 

[AngelaM]

Another thought as I'm re-reading your secondary post re wind; when January hit, did you get any thaw at all? I'm wondering if with all the snow drifts, you had the extended period of coverage that I note is lethal for ponds and easily triggers fish kills on natural ponds. Here in my portion of Michigan, once January got here, I had open water and the snow melted for a bit.

That is, has your pond been continuously covered with ice until this last break when you saw the dead fish? How long would you estimate you had the pond ice-bound (continuously)?

My pond has had ice continuously all winter until just a few days ago. Now it's totally open. When I spotted the dead fish, there wasn't much ice left so I scooped out what remained and now it's totally open water.

 

[AngelaM]

I found some pictures of AngelaM's pond.
https://www.gardenpondforum.com/threads/yay-i-can-see-i-can-see.22276/

Drifted snow can sometimes pack very hard, so could have sealed off the breather, ice could have formed in the upper tube in very cold, windy conditions (-30's to -40's windchill), but those conditions would need to be observed to be sure. With that cold of wind chill values, both a floating trough heater and aerator would have frozen over.
Was the breather checked on periodically to be sure it was working properly?
An O2 test as soon as there were dead fish noticed would have been nice to have.

AngelaM, do you have any pictures of your pond with snow cover?

No I don't have any pictures with the snow cover but it was never packed hard snow. I kept uncovering the breather and it was always loose snow on in. Like I said, I could hear the breather still working even before I uncovered it. I don't think the breather itself failed. It always kept a hole in the ice around it. I just don't think it provided enough oxygen.

 

[AngelaM]

Schrödinger's cat

My pond is kidney bean shaped. The 18" shelf is only on the shallow end. The deep end is by the waterfall where it drops to 4.5'.

 

[AngelaM]

Checked my levels and everything appears good except the ammonia level is a little high at .50 ppm. Ph is 7.4, Nitrate and Nitrite levels are at 0.

 

[sissy]

The ammonia level could be high because of the dead fish decaying .I had asked ponddiggger about that same thing .You can buy zeolite to help with the ammonia .I use zeolite but buy the fine pdh for horse stalls and put it in a very fine mesh bag

 

[callingcolleen1]

What warning was that?
You don't even know how they work.
I'm all ears if anyone can explain how the pond breather is a bad design.

I tired to tell you on several occasions that it would not work. I did look into that pond breather and like I said before, back in the year 2000 Laguna had a similar low watt de-icer that failed badly. The breather is too low watts to be effective for harsh long winters and will not provide enough air for very large fish. The company needs to provide a better more effective device that has more watts for severe winter and a better filter as well. It should be rated as well to only -10 Celsius so people are aware. There is no way that that device would ever work good for very severe winters and large koi. The air hole for one is too small and the wattage way to low for minis 20 and below. The whole pond will freeze way to deep all around that little "rinky dinky" pond breather. Yes I hate that thing as I saw this coming, and I hate when people get sad and lose all their fish and get discouraged. Koi are very large fish that swim twice as fast as goldfish and require much more oxygen. I hate to see people suffocate their large koi under the ice. Like I said, if the biggest fish all die off first, that is because they ran out of oxygen first.

mitch I always enjoy a good debate and please don't take it personnel. I respect you for defending a product you believe in.

 

[sissy]

It is just like anything sometimes there is a lemon when you buy it .Like most aerators if you look at them they all look the same .Look at harbor freight pumps 1 girl got the 4500 gph one last year and it is working great others have had problems with them .I guess here I could use one of those pond breathers since most winters are mild but can the winters be like that every year ,no .Would I rely on it only NO .Even with my pond heater I use my aerator .It all comes down to cost and you being comfortable with it ,Look at me I go nuts when I buy a plant for my pond ,I clean it and repot it and do not put it in my pond for at least a month .Maybe I am just to careful and too cheap .I don't put any one down with them ,but if something happens you need to figure it all out .What is to blame

 

[callingcolleen1]

It is just like anything sometimes there is a lemon when you buy it .Like most aerators if you look at them they all look the same .Look at harbor freight pumps 1 girl got the 4500 gph one last year and it is working great others have had problems with them .I guess here I could use one of those pond breathers since most winters are mild but can the winters be like that every year ,no .Would I rely on it only NO .Even with my pond heater I use my aerator .It all comes down to cost and you being comfortable with it ,Look at me I go nuts when I buy a plant for my pond ,I clean it and repot it and do not put it in my pond for at least a month .Maybe I am just to careful and too cheap .I don't put any one down with them ,but if something happens you need to figure it all out .What is to blame

I also did read lots of bad reviews from that pond breather. The company needs to either rate it to only -10 C or come up with a better product.