Should I melt the ice on my pond?

[herzausstahl]

I actually like the idea of that heater that you posted.
It provides, what, a 8 - 10" open water area or so within the heater body?
Will the hole in the top of the heater accept a piece of pipe, maybe a couple of feet tall, that could be useful in the case of a couple feet of snow accumulation?

It has the hole in the center of the unit & only melts a circle the size of the unit, but that hole should stay open. It's hollow underneath, so I'm not sure how easy it would be to attach a pipe, but I see what you mean, would lost have to clear the snow by hand. Right now mine is still buried, but I have a 450 gph pump circulating water in the stream entrance & the snow melted above that so I haven't checked it in a while, since I have a hole open there.


wow mario really must have been cold .I don't put pond heater on gfi because it seems they trip them every time .I have one plug at my pond just for it and it is only a 250 watt one and so far this winter only used it 2 nights .My son put in the electric and suggested that just in case .

Last year sissy I would take a 5 gallon bucket of hot water from the tub & pour it on the pond to melt he ice dome that formed over the pump I had running to keep a hole open. So yeah a boiling pot would cool pretty fast here sitting on the ice. Mario is probably 50-75 miles sw of me.

 

[Event Horizon]

I have always just used a aerator. When it gets super cold it will dome over, but I don’t worry about it. My thinking has always been that as long as I am pumping air into the pond, it has to be escaping from somewhere. If it is not from the hole it is from some other crack elsewhere. I have not lost a fish yet, and I get a lot of debris sitting in the bottom over winter.

 

[mariobrothersleeve]

Sissy, you must have had the wrong rated gfci. Maybe not, and your running current in your pond? You ever ohmn it to see or are you just running a grounding strap? Very dangerous if you ask me, you could hurt yourself and your fish if you short. Your choice, i perfer the protection