What is your weather like ... today

[callingcolleen1]

I did warn everybody that those heaters that suck lots of electic and to UNPLUG them when the temp rises above minus 10 celsus or about zero Fahrenheit as they are 1250 w to 1500 watts as they still draw lots of electric when plugged in, Plus it was a hard year too.
CE, if your two ponds were connecting like mine, with a stream, then you could get away with just one heater. With my three ponds, the Koi are in the top two ponds and are too big to get threw the water "gate" to the bottom pond where the goldfish are. If you can make them connect you can save money on heating them. I use just one heater for all three big ponds, and I am getting away with the 1250 watt for the most part. Then the ice would melt quicker too in the top ponds like mine, cause the water would be at the same level as the ice in the top ponds. My electric has been higher than normal too because this year was twice as cold as last year.
Weather contnues to suck, like minus 30 cold... thanks Mitch for the growing tips, soon I will start my seeds too, but if you start those seeds too early they end up getting way too big for greenhouse before it is time to go out!

 

[sissy]

part of what is wrong is everyone has there hands in the till to fatten there wallets .Just like the propane industry decided to make more money buy shipping propane out of the U.S and who pays for it all the people using propane .They fatten there wallets while we pay the price

 

[j.w]

We have joy we have fun we have lot's of big warm sun.............you were supposed to sing that first line to get the full effect. I stole it from the song Season's in the Sun. Listen below to this good old song from ages ago

 

[callingcolleen1]

Oh JW you are a Sweet Pea!!!! That is my favorite song, me and my sister used to sing it together as children years ago! I could not help but sing along again. You brightened up my whole day!!!!! Thanks!!!!

 

[j.w]

No problemo Colleen..............nothing like brightening up ones day w/ a song about dying. I love the song too but it is kinda sad also. It's a happy/sad song. You live, you love and you leave. Happens to everyone sooner or later
Me and my kidney stone had a nice walk in the sunshine today. I made it the whole way this time w/o Stoney giving me any pain. I'm gonna start naming them.........why not I made them and I will give birth to them so hey what the heck

 

[sissy]

well at least after you give birth to them jw you don't have to raise them for 18 years

 

[j.w]

Yep but it might be easier than raising children

 

[MitchM]

I hope that the XL pipeline project approval gets passed. ..

Agree with all you said Gordy.
I don't understand what the groups that are against this project have against North America becoming energy independent.
The demand is there and pipelines are safer than railcars which are being pushed beyond their cpacity. The oil woll be sold and transported one way or another.
There's another project up here to get bitumen to the west coast via pipeline in order to sell it to Asia, but constant roadblocks are being put in front of as well.
Maybe we should pipe it up north through Alaska instead.

OR - we can just keep buying oil from corrupt Arab and African nations. (I'm not talking about all of them...)
Environmental and human rights issues are way down the list of priorities over there. We're the easy target here.
You won't disappear in the middle of the night if you protest here.


.

 

[sissy]

/MIGHT BE EASIER JW These days I would not want to be raising children to much technology and not enough interaction with people .I see it all the time in the stores .Geeze I used to bicycle riding just about every day with my 2 sons and it was nice the fresh air and a proud momma with her 2 sons .Well Wally my oldest was a teen by the time my younger one could go out with us .Then even after Wally started working at Ford plant we would still go out .All 3 of us sunshine and fresh air .I miss those days ,makes me sad and happy at the same time .

 

[brandonsdad02]

Colleen, those heaters work good on your ponds I think because they are enclosed by a fence all around them. I would bet you don't get as much wind back there than those that have open land around our ponds. For CE, her ponds are so big that a 1500W heater wouldn't make much of a difference, they can only heat up the water so much. It would be like trying to boil a gallon of water with a match. I haven't used my heater much this winter. I have plugged it in a few times, but where it is at in the pond, it isn't doing much good. Its right where my waterfall dumps into the pond. The small amount of water it does heat, get cooled down again by the cold water that is being pumped back in by the pump in the skimmer box. I have been able to keep both pumps running this winter so that's a plus. Bog isn't frozen and I still have some green water mint in there.

 

[j.w]

Dry weather pattern staying here now for awhile. Hit 50f here today. Nice and warm! Sun and more sun till Thursday night and just clouds................but cold coming back to us on the weekend. Too dry to snow tho

 

[CountryEscape]

I agree with everything you said, Gordy, very well put.
Ryan, you're absolutely right. No matter how I connect my ponds, Colleen, there is far too much water volume in them to do any good. When you had your ponds completely ice-free, I had warmer temps sometimes, and with the heaters going 24/7, I still only had a hole maybe 12" round, and that was with a heater in each pond, with either air bubbler or water bubbler circulating under the heaters to help disperse the heat. Not sure yet what I will do next time, but I do know that when the ground is really frozen, and keep in mind my ponds are both above ground level, it will be impossible without a heater to keep even a small opening when the temps go down to single digits, much less zero. I will say, though, that with all the water running in the goldfish pond (which is smaller, BTW, and shallower than the koi pond ...) the stream ran under the ice, and the bog never stopped running either. The koi pond has a waterfall, which is 3-4' high above the ground level, so thinking that cooled the water too much, and shut it off. Would have kept the skimmer and bog running, but the bog already had circulation problems last fall, so will have to check that out this spring. Thinking shallower ponds are easier to heat, but also easier to freeze over if power goes off and it's bitterly cold, like below zero F.

 

[CountryEscape]

Temps going down to 9 tonight, and 4 on Thurs or so they say now. 30's by weekend again. woohoo!
Got my roof estimate - $6,860 to replace the whole thing with 30 year shingles. Going to get a price on metal roofing, since thinking it will last longer than shingles. Price will be more, though, but my house is straight gable, no valleys or anything, so that should help with the cost. Just have to fit around the pipes coming out the roof!

 

[mtpond]

With all the cold weather we have been having this winter I have been using a 1500 heater in my pond not to keep an opening but to try and keep the bottom of my pond warmer. It has worked my pond temp was averaging about 40F or more on the bottom of the pond ( compared to the last two winters when it got down to 36F and a couple times lower) but it has shot my electric bill up to 250.00 for the last two months. My house is all electric and in the past winters my electric bill has never been over 200 dollars during the winter. As Soon as this cold snap passes I will be unplugging the heater. This next winter I will try to come up with a cheaper way to keep my fish warmer . Cold 5F and a high of 38F today and sunny, will be unplugging the heater today.

 

[MitchM]

I didn't use a heater this year, just those 2 pond breathers. Too early to determine their success, but only about 45 watts each. Bottom water temperature stayed steady at 38F.
They continued to work through the coldest weather we had here, close to -40. I did put a cover on them during the coldest temperatures just in case.