Big emergency need help (will introduce myself in the same time)

[Rivermist]

Hello everyone.


I will follow the rules and introduce myself more on the other forum, but, I am in such a big emergency with my ponds that I can't waste time fore the procedure.

Just to introduce myself briefly, I'm 29, french woman, moved here in Maryland last year and we (my husband and I) bought a house with 3 ponds, one of them having a waterfall system that we turn off in winter.

There is an air pumps system as well to avoid all water to freeze during winter time.

But just few days ago one of the PVC air pipe burst during the night.
I fixed it, but I guess a little bit of water had been aspired in the pipes.

Managed to get rid of the water, fixed the PVC pipe with the PVC primar and ciment and the air was coming out of the 3 ponds' pipes.

But today again don't know what's wrong air is not coming... the pressure in the air pump is high, and had to make it go down a little to avoid another pipe burst.

But my ponds are starting to freeze and two of them are not deep (like a foot and a half).

I am so worried for my kois.

Any advises on what I should do ?

Part of the pipes are not even reachable (burried or under the deck... could only crawl half way).

I don't hear any air leak though.

So I just need to know how to keep my ponds from freezing. the deepest pond is about 3 foot deep, and the coat of ice is already pretty thick... I tried to make a little hole when i fixed the PVC pipe the first time, to allow bubbles to escape and defrost the plastic wire... but was to thick and couldn 't break it through.


So that's it...


Hope I was clear enough.... and sorry to ask like that, I just don't want my fish to become fish sticks :lol:

 

[DrDave]

Welcome to the forum.
In the meantime, can you place all the Koi in the deepest pond?
I suspect that your airlines are condensing moisture and then freezing which is causing them to burst.
You may want to set up a temporary air source in each pond and fix the below ground system in the spring.

 

[DrDave]

Anne-Sophie
I moved one of your intros to the right place and deleted one of your oops threads.
Again, welcome to the forum.

 

[Rivermist]

Thanks a lot for fixing my "oops" as you say.

I couldn't move the fish as they have a lot of shelters to hide and would stress way to much. Even breaking the ice would stress them a lot (from what I read maybe it's not correct).

I got two heaters, they are old but gonna try that and will move the air pump outside with a new plastic wire system till spring comes.


Thanks a lot for your answer and you help, will do my best and I will let you know.

 

[j.w]

Whatever you do don't hammer on the ice w/ anything as it will send concussion waves throughout the pond and could kill the fish. You can melt a hole in the ice by heating up water on the stove and setting the pan on the ice. Tie off the pan handle to something so as not to send the pot down under. You can buy a floating deicer for the pond to keep a hole or use a heater from an aquarium.

 

[Rivermist]

Thx JW... that's what I've done.

Will get the heater tonight

 

[27goldfish]

I just let mine freeze over, no problems.

 

[barry]

I had a similar problem over winter, it reached -18c here and the pond was literally freezing over in minutes, I got a hose connected to my house tap and ran it for around an hour every day, it done just enough to break the ice to let the fish swim freely.

 

[j.w]

Did I figure that right................I had to go to the net to figure out what it was in Fahrenheit and it came up w/ -39F.

 

[addy1]

BURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
I let my pond freeze over, the goldies I thought were gone survived and are swimming around looking for food now. They were under two inches in size when the pond decided to freeze and stay frozen. But they have 5 feet of water to go down in, think that helps.

 

[mogsie]

-18 would be half a degree in fahrenheit j w, it was the coldest it has been in about 50 yrs or so, we got the name frozen britain ! here in cumbria we got to -21C or -5.8f, with colder windchill factors, the whole of the uk and ireland was frozen,

 

[j.w]

You mean half of 1 degree F? Anyways it was colder than forever!

 

[CometKeith]

Barry, Did you declorinate the water first? I wouldn't think tap water is a good idea.