Should I discontinue my aerator/diffuser over next two winter months and put in my green deicer?

[callingcolleen1]

I just went on your mega-thread and viewed some of the videos that you have posted. Pretty amazing that all of this is thriving in -30C!!!
Super impressive!
Have one question though. As your fish seem to be pretty active, do you feed them? I always thought that once the plants start dying out or going dormant in late fall, and as the temperatures fall further, you can't feed the fish. The reason being that my nitrogen cycle is off, right? So if I kept my pond running and kept it warmer and feed the fish then they will poop etc and otherwise generate ammonia which since there is diminished bacterial activity won't convert to nitrite/nitrate and even if they did then there are no plants sucking up nitrates, right?So isn't that a problem? Just curious.

I do not feed them after September as it gets pretty cold the water by October. Fish hibernate all winter and

I just went on your mega-thread and viewed some of the videos that you have posted. Pretty amazing that all of this is thriving in -30C!!!
Super impressive!
Have one question though. As your fish seem to be pretty active, do you feed them? I always thought that once the plants start dying out or going dormant in late fall, and as the temperatures fall further, you can't feed the fish. The reason being that my nitrogen cycle is off, right? So if I kept my pond running and kept it warmer and feed the fish then they will poop etc and otherwise generate ammonia which since there is diminished bacterial activity won't convert to nitrite/nitrate and even if they did then there are no plants sucking up nitrates, right?So isn't that a problem? Just curious.

I don't feed the fish after September as October can be pretty cold. I let my fish hibernate all winter as the water temps in my ponds over winter are barely above freezing. My pumps and filters are all under water so they are more protected in winter below the ice. I never used to cover my ponds but after adding the new top pond about 4 years ago, the one heater had too work very hard to keep a small opening in ice, so now I cover with cold frames and barely have to use heater. As a matter of fact, my breaker went out couple weeks ago in -36 below zero and ponds only had have covered in ice with large openings in ice where water flows all year. It is important to keep fish in ice cold running water as that kill kill all parasitizes and keep pond very healthy, Its good for cold water fish such as koi to have a cold water winter to keep them healthy, like tout and other cold water fish. As long as water is running good all winter you fish will have fresh oxygen where running water keeps holes open in ice.

Also my pond is really four ponds that all flow together, the top three ponds are always pumped to maximum and then water flows down to bottom marsh area and biggest fish are in the upper ponds as water is fresher and cleaner in upper ponds. It runs sort of like a creek from pond to pond till it gets to bottom pond. I never take my ponds apart to clean unless I am rebuilding one one pond, as I have changed them over the 30 years of wintering my ponds. New liner was added here and there and the new pond pond is 5 feet deep was added 4 years ago, Hope that helps, I have also a U tube channel Colleen Penny and it goes back about 7 years now. Never ever lost a koi and they are never sick with my system. Bacteria continues to thrive in oxygen rich water all winter, as I always have perfectly balanced pond and never add nothing except declor water as added. I do things different than most people. Stay tuned to my threads and follow my ponds and learn how I keep them so clean without ever taking ponds apart.
Here is a look at my spring pond last year... note my Old Bear dog passed away last August at 16 years old

 

[Mayank]

I do not feed them after September as it gets pretty cold the water by October. Fish hibernate all winter and

I don't feed the fish after September as October can be pretty cold. I let my fish hibernate all winter as the water temps in my ponds over winter are barely above freezing. My pumps and filters are all under water so they are more protected in winter below the ice. I never used to cover my ponds but after adding the new top pond about 4 years ago, the one heater had too work very hard to keep a small opening in ice, so now I cover with cold frames and barely have to use heater. As a matter of fact, my breaker went out couple weeks ago in -36 below zero and ponds only had have covered in ice with large openings in ice where water flows all year. It is important to keep fish in ice cold running water as that kill kill all parasitizes and keep pond very healthy, Its good for cold water fish such as koi to have a cold water winter to keep them healthy, like tout and other cold water fish. As long as water is running good all winter you fish will have fresh oxygen where running water keeps holes open in ice.

Also my pond is really four ponds that all flow together, the top three ponds are always pumped to maximum and then water flows down to bottom marsh area and biggest fish are in the upper ponds as water is fresher and cleaner in upper ponds. It runs sort of like a creek from pond to pond till it gets to bottom pond. I never take my ponds apart to clean unless I am rebuilding one one pond, as I have changed them over the 30 years of wintering my ponds. New liner was added here and there and the new pond pond is 5 feet deep was added 4 years ago, Hope that helps, I have also a U tube channel Colleen Penny and it goes back about 7 years now. Never ever lost a koi and they are never sick with my system. Bacteria continues to thrive in oxygen rich water all winter, as I always have perfectly balanced pond and never add nothing except declor water as added. I do things different than most people. Stay tuned to my threads and follow my ponds and learn how I keep them so clean without ever taking ponds apart.
Here is a look at my spring pond last year... note my Old Bear dog passed away last August at 16 years old

Lovely video. Love Bear Dog! When do you start feeding the koi again? We don't run the pumps in winter because one of them is the kind that will freeze (its in the skimmer box) and the other one is submerged but the filtration unit it goes to (pondmaster or something like that which is above ground) is not allowed to get frozen according to the pond shop guy so we took that stuff and put it in the garage. But we did keep the aerator going and it certainly provides quite some movement at least in one area of the pond and left a nice hole most of winter. When it got really cold, I turned on my heavy duty green heater and it worked well. Hopefully the worst is behind us now!

 

[GBBUDD]

Amazing what a head start a little plastic can do to a pond . lloking good collene

 

[Lenae98]

I think that may be the size of pond heater Colleen in Canada uses .I am glad all I need is my small pond heater .You also do not want to keep the water to warm because if you have a power outage it could be a problem because fish may go into shock from super cold water after they are used to the heaters keeping the water warmer .Power outages are the curse of all pond keepers .I have a solar back up .I bought the system from harbor freight and 2 batteries and it works pretty good .I originally bought it for my led driveway lights .I need to do a higher mounting system but no time since I have been redoing the inside of my house .

Can you post the name of the solar backup system? I am super paranoid about getting my fish through the winter with an 18" pond in zone 5b. I want backup plans for my backup plans! Lol

 

[brokensword]

Can you post the name of the solar backup system? I am super paranoid about getting my fish through the winter with an 18" pond in zone 5b. I want backup plans for my backup plans! Lol

if you're going the winter tent/greenhouse route, all you'll need is that and maybe a battery backup aerator to swap in for any powered aerator/pondbreather you're using. Shouldn't even need that as a power outage won't last long enough to completely ice over your pond. Fish can easily survive (esp gf) frozen over ponds as long as the bioload isn't out of whack, i.e. you stock your pond correctly. Worst case scenario, you can heat up a pot of water, then place the pot onto the ice (if it even forms) and melt a hole to let any toxic gas buildup escape.

 

[Mayank]

Can you post the name of the solar backup system? I am super paranoid about getting my fish through the winter with an 18" pond in zone 5b. I want backup plans for my backup plans! Lol

Wow, only 18 inches. That would make me nervous. Clearly I'm not the expert but I thought ponds had to be minimum 30 inches in zone 5-6?

 

[brokensword]

Wow, only 18 inches. That would make me nervous. Clearly I'm not the expert but I thought ponds had to be minimum 30 inches in zone 5-6?

no, there's many that are 2' or less. A lot depends on how long sub-freezing temps occur. As you know in Mich, it varies a lot. I have one customer with an 18" deep pond and I don't think he even puts in an aerator. That said, he's lost more fish than I've berated him for, though mainly via the heron. The pond would have to freeze all the way down to truly kill the fish though your loss rate is going up with the ice thickness. The main idea is to have a way for any toxic gas buildup to be released. Fish kills mainly occur in ponds where ice and snow-overs last too long. The bio decay cycle uses up more oxygen than many realize, hence keeping your pond as debris-free as you can is a good idea, esp for those ponds that ice over.

 

[Mayank]

no, there's many that are 2' or less. A lot depends on how long sub-freezing temps occur. As you know in Mich, it varies a lot. I have one customer with an 18" deep pond and I don't think he even puts in an aerator. That said, he's lost more fish than I've berated him for, though mainly via the heron. The pond would have to freeze all the way down to truly kill the fish though your loss rate is going up with the ice thickness. The main idea is to have a way for any toxic gas buildup to be released. Fish kills mainly occur in ponds where ice and snow-overs last too long. The bio decay cycle uses up more oxygen than many realize, hence keeping your pond as debris-free as you can is a good idea, esp for those ponds that ice over.

Good to know. My son's karate senseis have a big koi pond and it is 5 ft at the deepest and they even told me that our pond at 40-42inches at its deep area was not deep enough! All our fish survived last winter (our first winter with them) so knock on wood I'm not changing anything I did for this year. Had the aerator running all winter but on a higher shelf not in the deep area.

 

[Lenae98]

Wow, only 18 inches. That would make me nervous. Clearly I'm not the expert but I thought ponds had to be minimum 30 inches in zone 5-6

I now know it's a less-than-ideal situation. However all my research said an 18 inch minimum for over wintering fish in a pond. I even the breeder. I have nowhere to put the fish inside for the winter. Next year we have plans the build a 15 by 20 4ft deep pond. Just gotta get through this winter.

 

[moodybluesfan]

My goldfish have overwintered for 9 years. Deepest part of my pond was 18". I used a deicer and all was fine. This year though, the outside outlet switched off ( I think when I was removing some electric Christmas decor) and the deicer was turned off. I didn't notice for 2 days. The ice sheet was VERY thin so I tapped with my hand and broke a hole big enough for my new deicer. One of my 12" fish floated up under the ice sheet when I opened the hole. Sad day, but haven't seen the other two fish. Hopefully they went down to the deepest level of the pond but hard to see down there right now.

 

[Mayank]

My goldfish have overwintered for 9 years. Deepest part of my pond was 18". I used a deicer and all was fine. This year though, the outside outlet switched off ( I think when I was removing some electric Christmas decor) and the deicer was turned off. I didn't notice for 2 days. The ice sheet was VERY thin so I tapped with my hand and broke a hole big enough for my new deicer. One of my 12" fish floated up under the ice sheet when I opened the hole. Sad day, but haven't seen the other two fish. Hopefully they went down to the deepest level of the pond but hard to see down there right now.

That's really sad. Ours froze up over one day when we were in Florida for a week because the aerator stopped working but my daughter put a vessel with hot water on the ice to gently melt it and also plugged in the green "rescue" deicer to open a hole.

 

[brokensword]

yep, that's the proper way; no hitting the ice with anything and causing shock waves...