Pond De-Icer (small pond)

[WolfStock]

Just got the P-418 to use this winter on my small (50 gal) pond.

http://www.farminnovators.com/page13.htm

This de-icer is generally made to keep a "hole" in the ice to allow gases to escape, though in my case since I have a lot of flow (waterfalls) I'm hoping (guessing?) it'll just keep all the water thawed. It's designed to cycle on at 35 degrees and off at 45 degrees.

Any thoughts? Anyone use this and have a thumbs-up or thumbs-down? Someone suggested a feed trough warmer at Tractor Supply - I went there with the idea of getting that, but they had this for about the same price of a decent (plastic-safe) trough warmer, so got this instead.

Since this is my first winter, I don't really have any idea if this will allow me to actually run my waterfalls, or if I'll have to just leave them off and bypass them. It'd be nice if I could leave them on, if this warms the water enough to keep them from from freezing (I'm in zone 6-7 - northern VA.

I don't have any fish or water plants yet - probably next year. This unit is supposed to be safe for both (though a quick cycle of 35->45 seems like maybe a little rough on fish?).

 

[koisRus]

That seems really big for a 50 gal pond. You could probably save alot of money on electric with a 100 watt unit.

 

[Shdwdrgn]

My pond is around 300 gallons, and I found that shutting off my waterfall the first year was a huge mistake. The past three years I have left everything running, and never have the surface freeze over (its usually late January or February before I get much ice at all). Since you are further South that me, its not likely that you will have any problems leaving your's running.

Having said that, keep in mind there are differences between our ponds. I have a heater (the feed-trough style, which work well), you have a de-icer. Since your pond is small, the de-icer may provide enough heat to keep your pond thawed all Winter. The most important thing is to keep a close eye on your pond through this Winter. Leave everything running, unless you see some danger of the waterfall freezing and causing all the water to be pumped out of your pond (obviously depends on your setup).

As for the temperature swings caused by the de-icer... I don't think that's actually what happens (but I'm not certain). I believe what does happen is that it will form a small bubble of heat immediately around the de-icer. Within that bubble the temperature will climb to 45, then once it shuts off, the bubble of warm water will dissipate into the rest of your pond. So your fish should not see huge temperature swings from normal operation.

 

[WolfStock]

That seems really big for a 50 gal pond. You could probably save alot of money on electric with a 100 watt unit.

Thing is - even the 100-watt ones are generally $35 (I paid $40), and generally the same size.

I was hoping to find something for say $15-20, and figured a watering trough warmer might be. They had some lesser-priced ones, but they were made for metal tanks (exposed heating elements), thus would cause problems in a vinyl-lined pond. Otherwise anything that's good for ponds seems to be $35-40, regardless of wattage.

 

[WolfStock]

My pond is around 300 gallons, and I found that shutting off my waterfall the first year was a huge mistake. The past three years I have left everything running, and never have the surface freeze over (its usually late January or February before I get much ice at all). Since you are further South that me, its not likely that you will have any problems leaving your's running.

Having said that, keep in mind there are differences between our ponds. I have a heater (the feed-trough style, which work well), you have a de-icer. Since your pond is small, the de-icer may provide enough heat to keep your pond thawed all Winter. The most important thing is to keep a close eye on your pond through this Winter. Leave everything running, unless you see some danger of the waterfall freezing and causing all the water to be pumped out of your pond (obviously depends on your setup).

As for the temperature swings caused by the de-icer... I don't think that's actually what happens (but I'm not certain). I believe what does happen is that it will form a small bubble of heat immediately around the de-icer. Within that bubble the temperature will climb to 45, then once it shuts off, the bubble of warm water will dissipate into the rest of your pond. So your fish should not see huge temperature swings from normal operation.

Thanks. Yeah I know the general design of the de-icer is as you say - to form a small "bubble" of heat around it (and thus a hole in the ice to let gases out). However my pond is small enough such that the flow from the waterfall generally stirs up the water enough that I'll bet the heat bubble won't even really form - it'll just heat the whole thing. And actually that's good, since I want all the water to be warmer so that my falls don't freeze (at least in the central flow part - I'm sure on colder nights/days there will be freeezing on the fringes).

 

[koisRus]

Thing is - even the 100-watt ones are generally $35 (I paid $40), and generally the same size.

I was hoping to find something for say $15-20, and figured a watering trough warmer might be. They had some lesser-priced ones, but they were made for metal tanks (exposed heating elements), thus would cause problems in a vinyl-lined pond. Otherwise anything that's good for ponds seems to be $35-40, regardless of wattage.

I understand that, but what I am saying is that the one you bought will use 1250 watts when on, the 100 watt unit will use 100 watts when on, big difference in the amount of electricity consumed.

I went with a 250 watt unit, could have gotten the 750 watt unit for two more dollars, but would cost 3 times as much to operate.

 

[WolfStock]

I understand that, but what I am saying is that the one you bought will use 1250 watts when on, the 100 watt unit will use 100 watts when on, big difference in the amount of electricity consumed.

I went with a 250 watt unit, could have gotten the 750 watt unit for two more dollars, but would cost 3 times as much to operate.

I don't think it really works like that. E.g. while the 750 watt one uses 3 times as much electricity when it's on - it's only on for 1/3 of the time of the 250-watt one. So it evens out, and they both use the same amount of electricity each month.

(Efficiency differences aside)

The main difference between the two being that the 750-watt one will heat the water faster, thus more possibility of thermal shock to the fish or plants.

In my case - the 1250-watt one actually says it's for "50-600 gallon ponds" (I was surprised). 1250 watts of course is extreme overkill in terms of the power necessary to keep the water in the whole pond warm, if the thing were to stay on all the time. However the idea of the de-icer isn't to keep the whole thing warm, but to instead just warm up a small area, to make a hole in the ice. In order to do that the best way is not slow warmth but fast and hot heat but for short periods, thus the high wattage.

So for my application it's not really ideal, but it seems like it'd still work OK and is what was available at my TSC. Part of the reason I put out the query is to see if maybe the "rapid heat" may be more of a problem than I think (e.g. the thermal shock potential). It does say it's fish and plant safe though.

 

[Shdwdrgn]

The falls stirring up the water won't really be an issue if you're careful about your placement (since it's pretty well contained to a small hole in the ice at the surface of the water). One thing I would be worried about, though, is that with that large of heater, you will end up keeping your entire pond at 45 degrees -- that is warm enough that any goldfish you might have later will be trying to eat, rather than staying dormant through the Winter.

 

[WolfStock]

Hmm - thanks. I hadn't thought at all about that - I didn't realize until yesterday (reading other threads) that fish actually have a dormant stage. I've never had fish before.

Sounds like I have reading up to do. Thanks for the info.

So in your case - is your water is warm enough to keep the waterfalls from freezing up, yet cool enough for the fish to be dormant? Do you have any pics of your setup perchance? From a cursory look I didn't see any on the forum.

 

[Shdwdrgn]

In my area, once the temperature drops into the single-digits, the ground temperature is finally getting low enough that I start seeing ice forming around the edges of the pond. Within a couple weeks of that, my pond will ice over completely except for the waterfall area. THAT is when I will plug in my heater. However the weather is quirky here, so its not unusual to get a lot of temperature fluctuation, and I have to be aware of those and watch my water temp. We had some warm weather in February this year, and by the time I thought to check, the water temp was up around 5 degrees and the fish were swimming around again. I was more mindful after that, and I unplug the heater when its not needed.

Sorry I don't have a gallery on this site, but here's a picture of my pond from early this year after I finally added some edging around it.

My gallery can be seen from my website: http://sourpuss.net/projects/pond/

 

[WolfStock]

LOL - OK I have to ask - what's with the bowling balls? That's an interesting touch. :claphands:

Thanks for the info. So how does your heater work? Is it on all the time when plugged in? Or does it cycle through a temperature range? Presumably from your comment on the 5-degree rise, it must be an always-on heater right? If so - I guess you just have to keep an eye on the temperature and know to unplug it when it starts to rise a couple of degrees?

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Haha! The bowling balls are from my other big project - http://madsplatter.net/ - a big trebuchet that I built. The balls get kicked around the yard when they're in the way.

I honestly don't know if my heater has a thermostat in it. It is a stock-tank heater mounted directly to the side of the upper pond liner, but it was already in place when the pond was given to me. My guess is that it is on all the time, however it is placed just behind the waterfall, so it always has water moving past it. I just watch the water temp and try to let it stay below 40 degrees.

I've also been planning to completely rebuild a new pond next Summer, so this discussion has been helping me think... What I would like to do is put a thermostatically-controller heater in each of my 55-gal barrels, and set up the plumbing so that in the Winter I can divert most of the water flow directly over the waterfall, but still maintain a slow flow rate through the filters. The idea behind this is to allow the water in the filters to stay warm (perhaps preserving some of the biological bacteria?), but provide enough flow back into the pond to prevent it from freezing over. The only problem I can see with this is that I would need a thermostat-controlled water valve to provide more flow from the filters if the pond temp drops too low... Erg... The concept is getting complex and expensive, so I don't know yet what I'll end up doing.

 

[koiguy1969]

I have never used a pond heater , so anything i say is mere speculation but on a 50 gallon pond. My concern would be how quickly the water is warmed. If it fires up at 35* and shuts down at 45* thats 10* difference and you dont wat to add additional stress to fish that already have a compromised immune system by fluccuating the temperature to quickly. I think the 100 watt heater may be a safer bet in this regard. Now like i said, ive never used one so this is merely a point of consideration.

 

[WolfStock]

Thanks for the tips all. I think you're right that the 1250W one is overkill and probably would be too harsh, so I returned it an am going to go for a 100W one or so instead.

Unfortunately in general it seems like there's a dearth of high-quality low-wattage pond de-icers. Seems like the commonly-used one is the K&H Thermo Pond 3.0 - however they seem to maybe have quality issues (leaking and sinking) from looking at customer reviews. I may still get it nonetheless - I can probably deal with leakage issues.