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[addy1]

Wow that is a bummer, I think you can save them back to your hard drive once you have it fixed.

 

[Shdwdrgn]

I've considered it, and might do that so I have some copy of those files... but the ones I post here are just small copies of the originals, so they won't have the detail.

 

[sissy]

sorry to hear that I put mine on cd's after I download them and also you a zip to store extra stuff ,these days you have to think of everything as there are some real creeps out there that get joy out of running peoples puters .not nice for sure

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Hmm I'm starting to wonder if I misjudged the capacity of my pond... We had a 115-gallon aquarium spring a leak last week, so this weekend I got it sealed up and water tested. This morning I drained the water into my pond, and it only raised the level by about an inch. There are a lot of oddball shapes and varying depths, so its hard to calculate the volume.

 

[sissy]

they sell a water meter that measures the water you put in your pond at lowes , but really the size or amount of water is not that important after you have the pond filled .I remember I used my water meter but to be honest I wrote it down in my pond book but for some strange reason I cannot find it .I did it again when I replaced the pond liner and wrote it on a piece of paper and put it in my pocket forgot it and washed the clothes so lost again .I gave up after that LOL

 

[Shdwdrgn]

At this point I think my fish would give me very angry looks if I drained out the whole pond just so I could refill it and measure the amount of water :razz:

 

[sissy]

hey they may like a swim in your bathtub LOL

 

[Shdwdrgn]

We got our first hard freeze last night. The overnight low was about 7F. When I got up this morning everything was frozen over except the waterfall. It appears my floating heater is not working at all, however I found them at our local farm store up the street for $22 last week, so I'll be getting a new one tomorrow. A couple weeks ago I pulled the media out of one of my filter barrels and set up the big heater in it. I'm hoping to see if it adds just enough heat to keep the waterfall from freezing up over the Winter.

Anyway, I figured it was time for more pictures! With so many trees in our neighborhood, its impossible to get great light for my shots, so what you see is what you get. I'll start with an overview of the whole pond...

There is just enough turbulence in the river due to some larger rocks that there was a bit of water peaking through as the sun started to warm things up.

The waterfall has so far stayed flowing freely, and with this layer of ice this morning, I see that there is a lot of air getting trapped under the ice by the waterfall. That should be helpful to the fish over the Winter. I love the look of the iris leaves trapped under the ice too. They've been laying over in the water for the past month, I can't believe they're still green!

You can see my big heater in the barrel to the left. The water gets swirled around the heating element as it rises. Even if it only raises the water by one degree, it should make a big difference in the freezing around the falls. If the ice around my pond stayed like this all Winter, I would be perfectly happy.

Right before Thanksgiving we had some beautiful weather in the 50's, so I took the opportunity to pull out the outlets around the pond and rewire the GFI's. I followed the directions on the box originally, and that method meant that if a GFI popped, every outlet downstream would also stop working. Since all of my outlets are GFI's, I wanted them to be individually protected, and not take the chance of ALL my pumps and heaters shutting off at the same time. The outlets are now wired this way and working separately as expected.

All of the fish have settled into the deep end of the pond, which will be very helpful if anything goes wrong over the Winter. Since my pumps are up in the small shallow pond, if there is an issue from freezing that causes the water to drop, it will only drain the small pond and I shouldn't lose more than a couple hundred gallons of water. This makes me feel better since I know my fish will be safe in the deeper water.

 

[sissy]

wow nice pics and waterfall looks good but at night I would watch it closely as when the sun goes down it will get colder and things can go wrong fast

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Well it certainly looks like I'm going to get a good run over the next few days. Tonight it will only get down to the mid-teens, then the next three days will have overnight lows of less than 10 degrees. We shall see...

 

[j.w]

Sounds like you have it fixed good for now but do keep an eye out. Ice can build up in strange places and cause water to flow out fast where you never would have thought it would. The pics are pretty w/ the nice new snowfall and all the ice crystals.

 

[fishin4cars]

Not sure if your aware but your actually super saturating the pond with cold water, Your replacing the warmer water in the lower end deepest with water that has passed through all the ice and is now right at the freezing mark. My suggestion is try and get a airstone and place it in about 18" deep water or placce a stock tank heater in the pond and just let it run, this will allow the deepest water to stay stable and possibly save the fish. a couple more nights of those kind of temps and your going to possibly end up with thicker ice than would have formed without the waterfall running.

 

[Shdwdrgn]

fishin - I'm not following the logic here? The ice that has formed is pretty thin - It's just enough to hold snow on top of it. And my stock tank heater is in one of the filters, so the water coming over the falls should be slightly *warmer* than the rest of the pond. Also of note, I expected the water from the falls the churn the pond fairly deeply, and was disappointed to find this Summer that the falls were only stirring the water a few inches deep (maybe 6?). While this is unfortunate for Summertime circulation, it seems ideal during the Winter as there should be very little movement in the water at deeper levels.

So I'm not following how this would be making the water colder?

 

[addy1]

With the heater it probably isn't, waterfalls tend to cool the water as the water falls through the colder air, even cool as they fall through hot air. I kept my pond cool in arizona with the water fall, even though it was falling through 118 degree air.

 

[sissy]

well at least you will see if it works .You can never know unless you try .In the filter with the stock tank heater ,did you think to maybe get a thermometer to see what the temps are and one for the pond by the waterfall and one farther out so you can see the difference in water temps from each place .You could get the floating ones and tie a rock to some to keep them where you want them .This way you can check your theory out and post it on here .This way we can see how it works out and you can also see how it works and how you may have to adjust it .I would be interested in that part living in VA where it never really gets that cold for long .It would be really interesting info