First casualty today

[PondMutt]

arctic blast .. yup .
have you ever seen solar pool covers .. colored bubble wrap ..somewhere from a pool supplier are theses nice round units .. i just use chunks.. works good ..

air lifts...
bubblers

when it is really iced up i will throw hand fulls of salt out on the pond ..

peer down through that clear ice at the fish..

 

[qclabrat]

arctic blast .. yup .
have you ever seen solar pool covers .. colored bubble wrap ..somewhere from a pool supplier are theses nice round units .. i just use chunks.. works good ..

air lifts...
bubblers

when it is really iced up i will throw hand fulls of salt out on the pond ..

peer down through that clear ice at the fish..

Do you let the solar cover freeze over?

 

[IPA]

Sorry about the loss, maybe it was just its time.

 

[audioenvy]

when it is really iced up i will throw hand fulls of salt out on the pond ...

There is a reason homemade ice cream is made in a churn with salt water. The salt lowers the freezing point meaning it causes ice to melt--but why is that desirable when making ice cream? It's because melting ice requires a very large infusion of heat from the surrounding water. Melting ice draws the heat from the cream.

So basically, when you throw salt onto the ice you are drawing heat from the water--but that's just making the fish colder. They would be better off with a protective layer of ice with a single hole for gasses to escape. There are a number of devices for sale on Amazon that are essentially rings float on the water and have a thermostat that causes a heater to come on just to keep the ring free of ice. It removes the ice by adding outside heat, not by removing that heat from the already cold water.