Need some advise on pond

[taherrmann4]

There was someone on here from Canada that had made some insulated type cover for his...

 

[ididntdoit99]

brandonsdad, you are in the same boat i was in last year, When I first dug my pond it was only about 2 1/2 feet deep. My suggestion is to buy a large tub or two and bring the fish inside. You are probably going to pretty much drain the pond to get all the fish out, which is a pain, and was what made me decided I needed a deeper pond because i was never going to do that again.

So, now that you have the fish inside and the pond drained... get all the leaves out. I didn't, and the next spring...when the snow melted, I had to drain it again, because there was black water in my pond from all the decaying leaves (and I didnt bother to keep a hole in the ice since there was no fish in there)

Next spring... go DEEPER I went down 4 feet, and then when fall rolls around again, Menards has 4 foot by 100 foot rolls of deer fence, which is really just a thin black netting for like $15, I put that over my pond as soon as leaves started to fall, it still looks decent, and the netting is open enough i can still drop food through it. It works great and was cheap enough that if i dont want to roll it up pick all the leaves out of it and save it for next year, Well I've got 3/4 of a rolll left.

 

[sissy]

They have what is called a thermo tarp and 100 hundred what light bulbs .but I would go with a pond heater first as you know it is safe and only comes on when you need it .

 

[HARO]

It's easy enough to say make it deeper, but the man needs something now, not next spring. Brandonsdad, I'm assuming that your winter is not that much different from ours here in the Great White North. I use a 1500w stock tank de-icer, which is thermostatically controlled to come on at 33 to 35 F. However, I think it would stay on full-time for most of the winter, so I only plug it in once the ice has covered the pond for about two days, and unplug it when the hole in the ice is about 18 - 20" across. This means that it runs for about 4 -5 hours twice a week. Personally, I don't believe a 150w. heater would work at our temperatures, and a lightbulb under a tarp would be history the first time a droplet of water hit it. And by the way, my pond is 2' deep, and the first winter (no fish) it froze solid. with the de-icer I get about 8" of ice at the edges. John

 

[sissy]

thats the main reason I could not give the proper info .I am not where it is really cold (well except for last winter ) I bought the kh one at pet mountain and figure 750 watts would be good and the I bought a timer that will only turn it on at night when the weather is the coldest .I know they burn a lot of electricity and I'm trying to conserve .My deicer was 30 dollars so I figured better safe than sorry .Before that I only used a pump in the pond to keep an opening and never had any problems with it .There are lots ideas people have used on here and guess some may work and some may not .Thats why I say always better to go deeper when you dig your pond and use the rule of thumb of a footing for like a deck or something similar .If they say a footing should be this deep do that with your pond and maybe go a little deeper .

 

[CometKeith]

brandonsdad, My pond is 4-4.5 feet deep and I probably have similar weather to you. I just use a 3 watt air pump in the winter and it kept a hole in the ice all winter except for a few days last year when we got hit with 2 feet of snow. I would recommend digging deeper next spring. The whole idea of a pond in my mind at least is to try to create an ecosystem that will sustain itself with minimum work from us. A deeper pond better fits that description because you will not have to blast it with high wattage heaters and deicers. At 4-5 ft you will have a bubble of 38 degree water at the bottom that will keep your fish comfortable all winter. I don't think that will happen with a shallower pond in your climate zone.