air stones and winter

[rdk]

I am using a new air stone with a new air pump. My question is do I have to replace it once every four weeks to make sure the air is free to flow? Is it unlikely to give me problems, in the ice cold winter? The last thing I want is to check the pond some cold morning and find it clogged. Thank you for any help.

 

[koikeepr]

It all depends on what you use for an airstone. They make these rubber ones these days that are more expensive, but rarely plug up. If you're using one of those regular sand stone ones, yes, they tend to clog up easily--but a good scrubbing with a toothbrush usually cleans up anything that's accumulated on it.

In winter, I don't even use an airstone, I just put the air hose in and let that bubble, because I'm not using it for aeration purposes, I'm just looking for it to keep a hole open in case I get some ice. In this case, those big, blurpy bubbles do the trick fine. I've got it set up this way right now, in fact. The 1/8th hose is just sitting in there in a corner of the pond making big bubbles.

 

[rdk]

You mean I don;t need the air to provide O2 for the fish to breath in the water?

 

[koiguy1969]

colder waters hold more oxygen but toxic gases form and are held under the ice the air supplies some oxygen but mostly keeps a hole in the ice so these gases can escape.

 

[koikeepr]

koiguy is 100% right. In winter, oyxgenation of water is not important. In fact, the fish will hang out in the lowest region which is most notably oxygen poor. At "hibernation" time, fish need less oxygen and will just stay in that warm, lowest level of stratified water. You don't want to disturb the stratified layers at the bottom and leave them still.

Now, in summer, you need to slap a air stone on the end of that air hose and make sure it sits right on the pond bottom so that you can really circulate that water at that normally oyxygen poor region.

Summer and winter is different for oxygen. In summer you want to break the stratification and mix it up with bubbles to get oyxgen down deep.

 

[rdk]

Thank you: RDK