Well, as of yesterday afternoon, my ponds are ready for winter! The goldfish pond will just continue doing what it always does, but the koi pond needed some winter revamping. I shut off the waterfall, so also drained the Skippy filter. Then I moved the line from the underwater pump that had previously gone to the waterfall and split to the bubbler fountain to the bog, if that makes sense. Now, the underwater pump goes only to the bog, which will be a filtration system during the winter, and if it works like the goldfish pond, it will not chill the water like a waterfall would, but more likely keep it even temperature, since the bog is lower than ground level. I make sure there are several outlets for the water to flow back into the pond, and not likely it will back up and flow over the edge. Then since I move the skimmer line (which had been feeding the bog), I now have it just recirculating that water back into the pond, weighted down by the lily pots. Hopefully, if all goes well, that pond can continue to run year round. The skimmer never froze up on the goldfish pond last winter except when we had sub zero temps and power was off for 24 hours. Just had to unplug and wait out the weather, which was fine.
Koi pond also has the air bubbler in there to help keep a hole in the ice, and I will put the floating heaters in each pond, but they sure won't be running all winter like last year! If the ponds freeze over, that's ok, just don't want them freezing too deep, and water circulation should help keep that from happening too quickly. Will plug in the heaters once a week and then run bubblers to circulate the water at the heater hole for the day to disperse the gases.
