pond running hours

[Dave 54]

We continue to use the filters throughout the winter period and as far as I'm concerned they should run 24/ 365 days a year

Dave

 

[Ruben Miranda]

Hello
I am in So Cal
My ponds run 24/7 365 days
A few years back I tried to save only running the.pumps and filters 12 hours, but things did not go well.
The fish where not happy
Algea went nuts
Plants that I thought would help also suffered.

In truth it could be that I am a little over stocked

But if you are running one main pump , I would purchase a smaller pump just for circulation maybe a foam filter on the end of it with a fountain or something similar.

Ruben

 

[sissy]

Those add on filters like colleen and jw use would be a great addition to a smaller pumps filtering and some of the laguna pumps use so little wattage you may not notice the change .I have a 1000 gph laguna for winter that uses 30 watts and a 600 gph that uses 20 watts .I helped save my self money also by changing out my cfl bulbs in my house to all leds and like said before unplugged everything not used to save on vampire users and other things have switch's to turn them off .Here my house is all electric and even with my pond and heat pump and building with my power tools costs me with all the add on taxes 146 dollars last month for electric .I also have a well so that uses power for the 1 1/2 horse power pump since it is 400 feet in the ground .So there are lots of ways to save so you can still enjoy a beautiful pond I use a watt tester and signed up with my utility company to register every thing in my house so when something is using more power than it should I get a warning which helps a lot in maintaining my home .So look to your house it will save your pond .It did take my hours and hours to register everything but worth the time

 

[Mmathis]

Mine runs 24/7. Not sure if you mean as related to winter, or just in general. I live in Louisiana so there is no issue with freezing (cold, yes, but no ice or snow). As far as do I think it's OK run pumps & filters (not weather related) only occasionally, no. I think they need to run all the time to continuously filter and aerate the water, not to mention to provide a continuous food and oxygen source for the biomedia (exclusive of streams).

 

[moby]

Mine is run 24/7/365 too. Only of time is for backwashing which takes 15 mins max once or twice a week in summer, once a fortnight (weather permitting) in winter. The pond freezes over but waterfall keeps an area open. Not lost a fish in cold seasons as far as I can recall in almost 30 yrs of ponding. Have goldfish varieties and koi in planted pond and am at full stock....or slightly over :-/

 

[Gambosia Granny]

I haven't used a pump in years, but then, my site isn't yours. I recently added ducks to the equation and I'm reconsidering my set up. I'll be increase my pond size this spring, adding a solar pump, and a natural bio-filter.

Forgive me if I missed the part of the thread where you give more details, but if your site is warm at night, lacks shade, etc, has few to no plant coverage, I would recommend 24/7/365. If your pond cools off at night, you have shade, pond plants, etc, I wouldn't worry that much about it.

Best wishes