Pond care during blizzard

[lynntran]

Hello everyone! I'm going through my first snow storm in our new house with our koi pond. Everything has been going well up to this point thanks to everyone's advice.

I got hit pretty hard with storm Jonas where some snowdrift has reached up to 6 feet and 3 feet in lesser areas. The koi pond is currently installed with the API pond breather and an aerator to keep oxygen flowing into of it.

The pond pretty much disappeared into the snow, I'm worried if this will cause problems for the fish since everything is covered. Should I do something and try to find the pond breather in this heap?

I only can tell where the end of the pond is because of the fisherman!

 

[RobAmy]

I personally would uncover the holes/breather. Be careful of ice thickness if you are standing on it. I shovel off the snow off my pond every year. I find the sun gets to the ice faster enlarging my air holes on the nice days, the little birds can drink out of it too. The fish are not in complete darkness for months. It is work but worth it to me. Last year I had 4ft all around my pond, it was getting tough to get the snow far enough away. Sorry for your storm, I am in RI and we did not get hit bad at all. Strong winds but only 6" of snow which I will still shovel off the pond.

I should mention try not to break the ice if you have to for anything, best to use hot water to make a small hole if you have to. The loud banging is not great for the fish. Shoveling had never seems to bother them, I do not chop the ice with the shovel, I just shovel what I can and leave nature to the rest. Be careful also with the breather not to break it with the shovel if you can't tell where it is.

 

[mrsclem]

Not sure where you are located at. I am in Maryland and the weather here before the storm was not cold enough to freeze my ponds enough to walk on them. As RobAmy stated, try to remove enough snow to find your pond breather, hopefully it is close to the edge. Hopefully your weather will be warming up tomorrow to help melt things down. We are to have 40s & 50s for temps for this week. Good luck & be careful with all that snow.

 

[MitchM]

Wow, that's quite the storm.
Your pond will be fine for a couple of days when the weather clears and you can safely assess what to do next.

 

[JBtheExplorer]

Looks like a nightmare that I am all too familiar with. We've had some bad ones here over the years.

As the others have said, it's important that you clear the snow around the pond breather so it can continue "breathing".

 

[MitchM]

Actually, clearing the snow for the pond breather is not necessary.
The warm air from the breather will create it's own way open through the snowfall.

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Another reason to clear the snow accumulation (if it can be safely done), is to allow light to reach the water promoting photosynthesis by the algae. This will help maintain an acceptable Oxygen level.

 

[sissy]

PRAY

 

[Tula]

Goodness, that is a lot of snow!!

 

[lynntran]

I found the pond breather! Yes there's so much snow!!! I'm around south eastern PA.

 

[sissy]

I guess I still like my pond heater .I feel it does a better job even though it costs more to run .

 

[addy1]

Mine melted a hole straight up in the snow.

 

[lynntran]

Mine melted a hole straight up in the snow.

I took a closer look at the heap of snow and found a small melting spot which was the breather!

Will my pond start to overflow since there's so much snow on the surface?

 

[addy1]

Mine overflows a bit i dont worry about it. Goes out the overflow spot.

 

[sissy]

With snow melt and they are saying heavy rains it may .They say tuesday rains and Wednesday could be some ice for us .The rain on top of all the snow melt will make it over flow .I went down and put my small pump in and left some water out of my pond because the over flow may freeze up ,better safe than sorry