More efficient pump?

[AmandaD87]

Well after a rather rough Spring/Summer the pond is finally running smoothly, no koi survived but the 5 goldfish are thriving.

My only issue is the pump that I have in the pond is causing my electric bill to be out of control. Not sure if it's doing too much work or just not efficient. Pond is only 120 gallons and pumps from the pond to a waterfall/Fileter set up. Does anyone have any suggestions?

As far as winterizing, do i need to run the pump all winter or just the heater with the aerator ball?

Thanks for any help.

 

[sissy]

I'm not sure there is any pumps out there that a real energy efficient by what I have been reading about pumps .Depends on the size of your pond and if you are maybe using to big a pump .Maybe you could downsize the pump and save energy that way .i keep a small pump running inside my pond filters and waterfall go off .I don't use an aerator in the winter just a 450gph pump going but you can use the aerator instead

 

[Waterbug]

How big a pump are you running that it's affecting your electric bill? For 120 gal pond I'd consider a 75 watt pump huge and that would cost about $6 per month if run 24/7.

5 goldfish in 120 gal shouldn't require any pump at least in non freezing conditions. The only thing a pump might provide is O2. If that's the issue then an air diffuser would cost way less to run and you'd get way more O2.

I don't know how cold your winters get but it's possible the fish could survive without any powered devices. Or bring the fish indoors.

 

[sissy]

With the winters where you live you will need something to give an opening in the ice .If you want a cheap pump that is smaller you could go to harbor freight.com and they have several small ones on sale .Buy the 5 dollar warranty and no matter what happens to the pump the will give you a replacement and you could do what I do on the winter and that is to do the pvc with holes drilled in it with an end cap on it .It will provide air and stir the water up .Or you could go to petco and get an air pump I got one with 4 outlets from there and it was 29 dollars and that was 3 years ago and it still works great and I just checked petco's sight and now the air pump is 19.99 and that is better than what I paid and it only use 5 watts of power model number 9904 darn forgot it comes with air line and air stones too .4 outputs 4 check valves .The only thing is you have to make sure it stays dry but still gets air to work so it does not overheat