My goldfish pond

[CometKeith]

Sissy, I like the way your hose is working. I think it might be a little warmer by you and not as practical to do that here. CE that's a neat idea about the milk crate. I agree about getting your air pump going. Also I think it is good to have some O2 going in the water if it gets covered in heavy snow. I have heard of fish kills after heavy snow. Addy I agree about the air pump. I have used an air pump the last two years and it keeps a hole in the ice for me except for a handful of the snowiest days. The reason I was thinking of keeping the water going was to reduce the chance of anaerobic decay from any left over organic material that found its way into the pond. The more water movement the less chance the bad bacteria will grow. Every year I keep my pump going longer in the year and start it earlier in the spring and I have found the water is much fresher smelling with less decay then when it just sat there in past years without a lot of water movement. I'm going to pull out my bio-filter this weekend. I was too busy watching football last weekend to do everything else I wanted. Hopefully the really cold temps we had the last few days didn't damage it.

 

[addy1]

CE
I was lazy this year, just used the diffuser that came with the pump, have it flowing just into the big pond. One huge mess of air bubbles in the shallower end. I have three balls bouncing around in the lotus tub. If we turn real cold I will watch to make sure the lotus tub does not freeze over solid, got to keep the rosey reds happy lol. The small preforms are on their own. The deck pond is empty except for some trap doors.

Next year with the 1000 gallon have fish in it, I will use a t and split the 3/4 inch irrigation tube coming from the ap to send equal amounts of air to the 1000 gallon and the big pond, put diffusers on the ends of each feed and into the ponds.

My pond last year sat for around 3.5 months or so, when I fired all up again there was no foul smelling water, even from the bog that sat without any water flow for all that time. I was thinking it would stink, but it didn't. The pond cleared up in about 24 hours.

 

[addy1]

Now that I posted that, think I will do a t off the line running into the big pond, send a 3/4 in line to the lotus tub, put a cork in the end with just a nice stream of air coming out. We are heading back up to 60 in the next week or so, so will mess with it then.

Oh and I wrapped the diffuser with some door screening to break up the air bubbles coming out.

 

[CountryEscape]

I know there was a really big discussion and links about pros and cons of having oxygen blowing into your pond in the winter. I know that farm ponds don't have anything like that, they freeze over, and they are fine. There is a reason the fish die, and if I recall, it has nothing to do with the oxygen, but rather with the quantity of fish and waste, along with added waste from decaying plants and such. The problem comes when the pond "turns over", or I think that's when the problems happen.
Also, I remember someone saying that if we add oxygen during the winter, the algae plants will begin growing sooner, or continue to grow, or something like that. But, the cons of having water movement was that someone said it made the pond colder, by circulating the colder water from the bottom to the top. So, many decisions, and I think there is once again no good answer. Kind of whatever works for you.
Temps are getting up to 60's this weekend here, so I may go ahead and get the air lines and make some type of box with a platform for the AP to sit off the ground, and let air get to it from underneath. Actually, if I only ran it in the koi pond, I could put it on the deck, and then I could run a water pump in the goldfish pond, which is a little shallower, and see which of the two keeps the ice off longer or better! Then decide about running extra air lines for next year. I think the air bubbles are a good thing in the summer time when the water is really hot, too, is that right?

 

[addy1]

I have enough water movement, I don't worry about running the air pump in the summer. So pump summer, air winter.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Hello there Keith, are you there or on vacation? Hows the pond doing?

 

[sissy]

with the crazy weather you don't really know what to do here .Usually our average for december is 50 and winter usually does not hit until January .I get more confused with each year what will happen with the weather .My filters are still running and bottom temp has been sitting at 60 degrees and not sure when it will get below that .I am guessing since weather all this week will be in the mid to low 6o's not soon and it is above 70 out .

 

[CometKeith]

CE, you are so funny! Nope not on vacation, just working a lot lately and my wife is making me watch 3-4 hours of the HBO series "The Wire" every night lately and doesn't leave much time for much else except watching the Chicago Bulls games on TV. I tried to find an old thread about the benefits of running a pump in the winter despite the fact that it might lower the water temps a little. If I can find it I'll post it here. The person that wrote it seemed pretty smart and was a firm believer in leaving the water going. Oh and the pond is not doing much. I took out my bio-filter last weekend and left my Laguna 900 pump running with water going over the waterfall and an air pump running connected to a large air stone. I think I'm ready for winter and for snow if we ever get any!

 

[addy1]

I shut mine off, but we are going to be gone for 3 weeks, don't want to take a chance on the bog water fall freezing up. Also due to the surface area of my bog it cools the water a lot. The water has warmed with it off. I do have an aerator going strong.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Yes, let me know if you find that old thread, would be nice to read, cause I have been running my pond pumps for 20 years and never shut them down either, as I too am firm believer in running a reduced flow like naturally a creek or river would. never had any problems doing that, but I can tell you of many people that have tried other methods here in Medicine Hat that have failed horribly over the winter just using an air bubblers. If it freezes too hard like here, the surface can freeze super hard and very thick ice can grow, which in turn lowers the water level below the ice quite a bit. Look at Wayne in Edmonton, he listened to the experts who told him to use the bubbler and he has sick big fish already and he keeps his pond very clean, but I believe the gases build up under the very thick ice and could not escape, as a result the fish breathed in the deadly gases. The larger fish are affected first by deadly gases as they require more oxygen then the smaller fish and hence breathe in more deadly gases. I don't listen to the experts because the so called "experts" have a long history of being wrong. Lot of the so call experts don't practice what they preach either, as in Wayne's case, I asked if the expert that sold him his big fancy bubble uses it himself and Wayne told me NO!

Now don't get me wrong, bubblers are probally just fine for people in warmer zones, but here we will see minus 40f at some point this winter, as we usually do. Our little ponds are just not big like a lake, but my little 3000 pond is the same width as the little creek by my house that has large sucker fish and whitefish wintering below the ice in the deeper pools all winter, and they survive cause running water will not freeze solid!

I practice what I preach too!

 

[sissy]

I really don't think there can be experts out there as very pond is different .location ,depth ,fish load ,filters and just weather all around they are so different .They have opinions but you never know always has to come in there also .

 

[CometKeith]

Colleen I have tried to find the thread both by looking under "winterizing you pond" threads and under "my content" that i have replied to threads and can't find it. I think when we switched to the "new" format a year ago or so some things must have been lost. There were several posting by another Canadian like you and I believe he was in the pond business as well. His theory that even if the running water basically lowers the temps of the water to freezing by breaking the warm water bubble at the bottom of the pond it was much more beneficial to keep water flowing to reduce anaerobic decay. I was always worried that my fish would freeze to death if the bubble of warmer 38 degree F water that keep my fish nice and toasty in the winter was disturbed, but he felt it was much better to have water flow instead even if temps went down to almost freezing. Re hole in the ice; I agree that a hole must be kept in the surface. Allowing it to totally freeze over invites problems because of the lack of gas exchange ie out with the bad and in with the good. Whenever someone tries to compare natural ponds to what we all have it's always unfair because the fish density is so much lower in a naturally occurring pond. My bubbler has kept a hole in my ice for all but several of the snowiest days. Sissy, I agree with your statement. Every pond is unique. There are a lot of general themes but there are so many factors that make caring for a pond different from each other. I tend to follow threads of ponds that are in similar climate zones and similar size to mine and only goldfish... but still there are still a lot of differences in terms of the care required. Addy, i agree that an aerator is the safest and easiest way to keep a hole in the surface. I also feel it has the added benefit of providing O2. I am still deciding if I am going to leave my waterfall on while I'm on vacation or just leave the aerator going.

 

[CountryEscape]

I don't want to have to worry about ice forming and causing water to go over any edges on stream and waterfall, so during the 10 days I will be gone in January (assuming the forecast is for far below freezing temps during the day), I will shut down those items. Problem is that if I do that, the Skippy filter will possibly freeze solid. So, have to make the decision of whether to move it inside the garage, and refill it, or drain it and clean it out. The goldfish pond will get a pump pushing water to the surface to keep hole open, stream and bog shut down.
One thing I'm wondering about is if I definitely need to remove the pumps that are in the skimmers, if the water in there may freeze solid? I assume yes, so that will get done as well before I leave. The skimmer in the goldfish pond runs the stream, in the koi pond it runs the bog. So, lots of decisions to make, but hoping to watch it all closely and decide at the last minute whether to pull pumps or keep things running as usual. I did move the edges of the stream to get them up higher. I have plenty of liner to build it back up in the spring, as things have settled, plus I didn't have the edges high enough if anything made a "jam". Those will be spring projects, but for now, if ice forms, the water should still be able to flow below it.

 

[callingcolleen1]

CE, in the twenty one years of running my connecting ponds with their "water ways" which drop down into the next pond, NEVER has the water ever flowed over the ice! The ice will form a ice shell OVER the flow, but under the ice it will still flow. Ice expands, and it can expand over the edge of my pond during very cold winters, but under the ice the water still flows. Even if the ice expands to the top of the pond, the water will still always flow under the ice, I PrOmIsE you that! Like a river or stream, you will never see the water flow over the ice in the middle of the winter. During spring when the top of the ice can melt on the river or stream, due to the hot sun shining on top of the ice, you may see water on top of the ice then, or during a ice jam in the river, the water may then start to flow over the ice because of a jam down stream. I have never had an ice jam in my ponds ever. This only happens to big rivers and sometimes streams. If you see the ice expanding over the top edge of the water drop, as it does in my pond during very cold periods, not to worry, the water will still flow under the ice.

I have found that Ponds that run all year with their filters have much much less problems in the spring, as the bacteria has been preserved in the filters because the water is still flowing into it. Look at things this way, I never clean my pond or change the water, I never had pea green water for 20 years now, always is crystal clear, and I have some leaves sitting on the bottom of my pond, according to the experts my fish should all be dead, but 21 years later they are still doing just great!

If you have a bubbler and it has always worked for you and you feel more comfortable with that then it should be fine, as you guys don't get near as cold as me.

My bottom pond is froze over, as it always does, but the water is still flowing into the pond from the middle pond. You can see a very small air hole is open there. See the ice shell that has formed over the water drop in the last picture.

 

[CountryEscape]

I totally agree with you, Colleen. My stream is really pretty shallow, and I didn't have my of an "emergency" edge, some of the edge was less than 1" before the water would go over the top. IF I got an ice jam, ice breaks off and gets caught in one of the up/down areas of the stream, I feared that the water would flow out of the stream, thus draining my pond down to the level the pump is set at. Same for my bogs, not much clearance, and I can't correct that other than move in walls and make bogs slightly smaller. I didn't cut the liner, just dug deeper and farther than I should have. But, I agree that the ice should for a shell on top and not both the area where it is flowing over. My bog inside walls have sunk some so that there are several places where the water flows over the edge besides the main overflow, and that may just stop that overflow with some ice. I don't want to have a heater running all the time, that's why I'm going to use water movement with an extra water pump in goldfish pond, and bubbler in the koi pond. That way I can see if I have any difference in the pond water quality come springtime and filters being turned back on BUT, you have me intrigued enough to try to keep it all running year round. You sure get way more problem with ice than I would get here. If the bubblers and water motion will keep an opening on each pond, then the heater won't be needed at all. We shall see ...