My goldfish pond

[CometKeith]

Patfish It sounds interesting, but i'm in construction and always worried about the safety of things. I'm wondering if there could be a possible electrocution risk by putting an open outlet so close to the water? What if a kid tried to step on the box? If god forbids someone got injured it would be difficult to explain how I thought it would be foolproof....
Here is a picture I took over the weekend of my breather in the pond. It's going down to 15 degrees tonight.
C.E. Nice to see you are back active on the forum!

 

[CountryEscape]

Thanks, CK! I know you're quite a bit north of me, but let's see how our ponds fare with the temps tonight! I don't have any ice on my ponds as of this evening, and I see you still have a little on the one end. Is that a bubbler or something moving the water in the middle just to the right of your breather? Maybe a fountain with the head removed so the pump is pushing water to the surface to help keep it from freezing? That's a great location for that and the breather to work together.

 

[CometKeith]

CE there is actually more ice now than when I tool the picture. The bubbles are from an aerator I bought just before the winter. Unfortunately just by itself it wasn't enough to keep a hole in the ice and I lost one of my largest fish this winter That's why I bought the breather.

 

[CountryEscape]

I checked the temperature at about 7:15, after the sun had been up for a while, and it said 5 degrees. I bet you were below zero! This is what my 2 ponds look like this morning. The goldfish pond (second picture) has the larger hole, and larger pump forcing more water to the surface. I didn't want the put the pump on the bottom of the pond, so it's attached to a milk crate. That pond is smaller and only 3-3.5' deep. The koi pond (first picture) has a nice sized hole as well, with a 1600 gph pump. (not sure the gph of the goldfish pond pump). On the upper left side of the koi pond, the bog is running, and water is draining into the pond left middle of the pond. The goldfish bog was running until about a month or so ago, when the really cold weather hit. Ice had formed a dam on the edge, and water was being pushed out that side. My ponds are super full from a good rain we had couple of weeks ago.
The only time my ponds had solid ice was during the really gold week or two, where temps never got above 10F. But, the pumps were still shooting water to the surface, and the water froze in a dome. I've never tried the breathers, but I'm sure they would great! I like the water moving with the pumps, though. Not sure the fish need it, but I feel better knowing there is circulation in the ponds. Oh, and I tried aerator one winter, and it didn't do well at all keeping the surface free of ice, but sure made for neat ice formations over it!

 

[Lisak1]

@CountryEscape - I used a pump like you are doing the first winter we had the pond. I just couldn't handle the turbulence! Every time I looked out the window, it bothered me to see so much... action! haha! It did work, though - we had a big dome of ice over the pump at some points, but it kept an opening for a good portion of the winter. That was the only year we shut the waterfall off. Since then we keep everything running and don't worry about the pond icing over.

 

[Patfish]

Patfish It sounds interesting, but i'm in construction and always worried about the safety of things. I'm wondering if there could be a possible electrocution risk by putting an open outlet so close to the water? What if a kid tried to step on the box? If god forbids someone got injured it would be difficult to explain how I thought it would be foolproof....
Here is a picture I took over the weekend of my breather in the pond. It's going down to 15 degrees tonight.
C.E. Nice to see you are back active on the forum!
View attachment 108001

I by no means think this is foolproof.
I do have it plugged into an outdoor GFI. Hoping if anything bad happens it would trip that.

 

[CountryEscape]

@CountryEscape - I used a pump like you are doing the first winter we had the pond. I just couldn't handle the turbulence! Every time I looked out the window, it bothered me to see so much... action! haha! It did work, though - we had a big dome of ice over the pump at some points, but it kept an opening for a good portion of the winter. That was the only year we shut the waterfall off. Since then we keep everything running and don't worry about the pond icing over.

Yep, I know what you mean, Lisa. I don't like the excessive push of water on the goldfish pond, it makes a lot of motion and noise, but it keeps the opening open longer, too. The koi pond is perfect. Barely hear that one bubbling. I need the goldfish pump lower and then it would be much better, but lower would be on the bottom, and I'm afraid it would get clogged over time, and then be under the ice and no way to clear it. Sooo ... I deal with the turbulence.

 

[CometKeith]

Update on my breather. I think it is heating the water a little bit. Normally where my aerator is the hole in the ice closes when it gets really cold. So far there is still a small hole despite the cold and snow we have been having. It's supposed to snow up to 8" tonight so I will see how things are tomorrow, but at least the breather is working good so that should help.

 

[addy1]

Mine are surrounded by ice, no openings, the ponds froze over again. The water is 40F.

 

[Lisak1]

@CometKeith they were predicting closer to 12" in the city as of last night. I haven't ventured out yet, but they were calling everything off and closing everything here by 5PM yesterday. It's a looooooooong storm that's moving through - supposed to continue snowing all day.

 

[CountryEscape]

You guys up north of me could share some of that snow, ya' know! LOL I've only had a few very small snows, 2-3" at most! I'd like just one good snow to end the winter with, but not 12"! A nice 6" snow with no wind ... perfect.

 

[CometKeith]

Sorry CE. I wish I could send you some snow! So here is a picture of my pond from this morning. I think we had at least 6 inches of snow overnight and then around another 3-4 inches during the day today. The breather is completely covered with snow. There is a very small open spot in the snow where it is supposed to be. I have never seen this before...Where there is a hole in the ice there is a cutout in the snow of about a foot deep all around the hole. You can see the water churning pretty good from the aerator. My guess is since the breather is close to the hole, it warmed up the water enough to keep it from freezing like it did before I got the breather. So even if the breather isn't doing a good job which I really don't know, at least it helped to keep a hole in the ice and snow!

 

[Lisak1]

@CometKeith the snow is also a great insulator keeping the surface warm...as one of our dogs learned yesterday when she fell through. I tried to warn her... Luckily she's young and agile and got herself out. And it wasn't deep where she went through. I wish I could say she learned her lesson, but this one is Not.Real.Smart.

 

[CountryEscape]

Oh gosh, scary @Lisak1 !!! I'm always afraid my dogs will do that with my 2 ponds, but so far they have not. They drink from the stream in the spring-fall months, but during the winter they are in their heated kennel with water in a bowl. LOL Yukon, my snow loving dog, refuses to go through the doggy doors into the kennel. I think actually, he's somewhat afraid of them. He's a "tender" dog, very kind, and doesn't like loud noises, which the doors make when they shut. But, he loves being outside, so he has a very thickly bedded dog house and his own food and he drinks from the koi pond bog, where the water is always free flowing where he can easily get to it. This was one of our few snows, maybe 3" this time, but it drifted in the ditch, and he loved it!!!

 

[Lisak1]

She was in and out pretty fast, so it wasn't too scary. We actually fenced off the pond the first few years after our big Malamute fell through. He used to love to lay on the pond in the snow - or anywhere in the snow, actually. But he did fall through one year and THAT was scary. He was older and my husband was home alone - he knew there was no way he could get the dog out without falling in himself. He was about ready to call 911 when the dog managed to get himself up on the edge of the thicker ice and out. After that dog died, we stopped with the fence as our little dog will barely go off the back step when it's cold out - she pees as close to the door as she can!

We've had this dog for two years now and the first day we brought her home (she was already over a year old when we got her) she ran like crazy through the backyard and RIGHT into the pond. I guess she had never seen water before! After that she was wary around the pond, until this year. Now she seems to have forgotten the boundaries, so maybe the snow fence needs to come out again! In fairness to her and her lack of brain power - it does all look basically the same right now!