Val and I are in total shock.

[Lisak1]

I feel like my pond is my own little laboratory. And my experiments tell me that my koi have adapted just fine to not only cold water, but cold water with an impressive ice cap! (Please see above re: don't tell my fish some people heat their ponds!)

 

[Mucky_Waters]

If you were to heat

Why is it my friend Elaine who also lives in Canada get two foot of ice every winter killing off her koi till i told her to move them into her hubbies workshop every winter now she looses none (Fort St Johns BC), roughly the same sort of latitude for wild carp again sadly not for koi Carp...not the 2ft of ice and just what happens to air bubbles when they freeze
Dave 54

Dave your friend lives in an awfully cold part of BC. You could rightfully argue that the cold killed her koi, but I would still argue that they probably still died indirectly from the cold, meaning it wasn't the low temperatures that killed them but rather a lack of oxygen under the ice, or the long winter torpor periods they had to endure under that ice living on their fat reserves without being able to replenish their nutritional reserves. Also, it seems like a fairly small pond for the amount of ice buildup they get in that area, it looks like maybe it wasn't that far off from freezing into a solid block of ice.
If I was to build a pond in an area where it was common to get 2 feet of ice I would be building the pond 6 ft - 8 ft deep, and I would have a set up much like I have now where I have water circulation from a bottom drain that flows to an open settling tank (in an insulated pump room that has a small heater that is set only to prevent the room from freezing) then the water flows back to the pond again, all under the ice cover.
Messing around trying to keep an open hole in 2 ft of ice in -30 c weather seems like a losing battle to me.

This is crazy...............................

I'd rather deal with this.................................................................................................................................................

 

[Lisak1]

That is indeed A LOT of ice on what appears to be a very small pond. I'm also not sure hacking away at the ice with a hatchet is advisable.

 

[Mucky_Waters]

That is indeed A LOT of ice on what appears to be a very small pond. I'm also not sure hacking away at the ice with a hatchet is advisable.

I can assure you it's not.

 

[MitchM]

The more you expose water to cold temperatures, the more evaporation will happen and the deeper the ice will get.
The koi probably died from stress with all that chopping.

Randy, where does the water enter back into the pond from your pump/filter room?
Above or below the water line?

 

[Mucky_Waters]

Randy, where does the water enter back into the pond from your pump/filter room?
Above or below the water line?

Below.
I have it plumbed so the water feeds back to the pond through the 1" line I normally use for the skimmer in the summertime. you can see that black 1" line just behind the 3" bottom drain line in the picture of my pump/filter room I posted. The water level you'll see there in the vortex tank is slightly lower than the water level in the pond itself.

When I plumbed that filter room I designed it so I could drain all the unnecessary tanks and lines and the main waterfall pump in the winter, then just swap some of the lines around and use just the one vortex tank.
So in the winter the water still gravity feeds through the 3" bottom drain and into the vortex tank. Inside that vortex tank I have a small pond filter connected to a 1" line that exits the tank and flows to a pump, from there the water gets pumped through a UV light and back to the pond again (below the water level of course) through the 1" line I normally use for skimmer in the summertime. (except the water flows in the reverse direction and the skimmer is removed)

Here is a picture looking inside the vortex/settling tank in the winter.

And a picture showing the pump that circulates the water back to the pond in the winter.

Before I ever sat down to design the layout of this pond I knew this was one of the things I wanted to be able to do, circulate the water below the ice and frost level in the winter time. I knew that I'd probably want an enclosed, insulated, pump room to accomplish that. The pump room is basically built on top of what many koi pond people just refer to as a filter pit.
Why don't more of them enclose their pits like this, I don't know?
Enclosing it hides and protects everything and having it insulated makes it easy to keep from freezing. Because the filter room is below ground level and the top part insulated so well the little heater I have in there rarely needs to turn on. I know because I have it hooked up to one of those power meter/ monitors. I have the heater on the frost setting which only turns it on when it drops below 1 c, so at most, it only consumes maybe $1 worth of electricity all winter. It runs so little the heater adds no significant heat to the pond water, in fact, I'm fairly certain I could get away without using it at all but I like to keep it as a backup in case the pump fails. Truthfully I think one reason the heater needs to turn on so little is the pump in there throws off enough residual heat to keep the room above freezing.

 

[Dave 54]

If you were to heat

Dave your friend lives in an awfully cold part of BC. You could rightfully argue that the cold killed her koi, but I would still argue that they probably still died indirectly from the cold, meaning it wasn't the low temperatures that killed them but rather a lack of oxygen under the ice, or the long winter torpor periods they had to endure under that ice living on their fat reserves without being able to replenish their nutritional reserves. Also, it seems like a fairly small pond for the amount of ice buildup they get in that area, it looks like maybe it wasn't that far off from freezing into a solid block of ice.
If I was to build a pond in an area where it was common to get 2 feet of ice I would be building the pond 6 ft - 8 ft deep, and I would have a set up much like I have now where I have water circulation from a bottom drain that flows to an open settling tank (in an insulated pump room that has a small heater that is set only to prevent the room from freezing) then the water flows back to the pond again, all under the ice cover.
Messing around trying to keep an open hole in 2 ft of ice in -30 c weather seems like a losing battle to me.

This is crazy...............................

I'd rather deal with this.................................................................................................................................................

I can assure you that she knows all that now but at the time and on a different forum she didn't. but the difference doesn't end there as @callingcolleen1 says this every time I heat my pond with a1500 watt Cattle trough heater in my top pond with the water flowing down to her other ponds .
Thinking about this I am wonder why she was so rabid about what Peter Waddington talks about because if you think about it, she is doing exactly what he suggests which to my way of thinking smacks of double standards on her behalf .
I was out with Val the other day looking at buying a shed to put the new filtration in and found a nice 6ft x 8ft.one made from plastic (no rot) .
Its going to cost £608 but as a 61 year old if I go to B&Q and present my diamond card I can save quite a bit in discount plus free delivery on items over £500.
We aim to start this project late spring and finish it hopefully within a day or two whilst the pond is isolated b the 4 " bottom drain Valve and a stopper in the in the 2" pipe entering the pond
All with the assistance from our neighbour Jeff and our sections health official we hacve a choice of our old vortex to go with our new filters or a smaller vortex / multi bay filter along with an Oase 15000 to polish off the water , the rest of the space can house the first aid kits we have for the koi as well as microscope and work bench all powered by a new pond control unit that a friend is ordering for me we could eve heat the shed in the winter to keep the water at a higher temperature than before ( we can also have the all important man cave too lol),

Dave 54

 

[Mucky_Waters]

as @callingcolleen1 says this every time I heat my pond with a1500 watt Cattle trough heater in my top pond with the water flowing down to her other ponds

Well, how about it Colleen, have you been secretly flirting with the other side behind our backs and covertly heating your pond in a vain attempt to warm your shivering koi warm?

 

[Mucky_Waters]

Well, how about it Colleen, have you been secretly flirting with the other side behind our backs and covertly heating your pond in a vain attempt to warm your shivering koi?

 

[Dave 54]

Wait a minute Mucky I have had a report from one of my sources, and my sources say that she has a UTube videos that bear this out as well my friend.
So yes as you so aptly stated I believe she has gone over to the dark side
Is this true @callingcolleen1 you have gone over to the dark side and joined the Waddington band wagon, it's no wonder your koi survive the long Canadian winters without a problem every year , we areU

Dave 54

 

[MitchM]

Below.
I have it plumbed so the water feeds back to the pond through the 1" line I normally use for the skimmer in the summertime. you can see that black 1" line just behind the 3" bottom drain line in the picture of my pump/filter room I posted. The water level you'll see there in the vortex tank is slightly lower than the water level in the pond itself.

When I plumbed that filter room I designed it so I could drain all the unnecessary tanks and lines and the main waterfall pump in the winter, then just swap some of the lines around and use just the one vortex tank.
So in the winter the water still gravity feeds through the 3" bottom drain and into the vortex tank. Inside that vortex tank I have a small pond filter connected to a 1" line that exits the tank and flows to a pump, from there the water gets pumped through a UV light and back to the pond again (below the water level of course) through the 1" line I normally use for skimmer in the summertime. (except the water flows in the reverse direction and the skimmer is removed)

Here is a picture looking inside the vortex/settling tank in the winter.

And a picture showing the pump that circulates the water back to the pond in the winter.

Before I ever sat down to design the layout of this pond I knew this was one of the things I wanted to be able to do, circulate the water below the ice and frost level in the winter time. I knew that I'd probably want an enclosed, insulated, pump room to accomplish that. The pump room is basically built on top of what many koi pond people just refer to as a filter pit.
Why don't more of them enclose their pits like this, I don't know?
Enclosing it hides and protects everything and having it insulated makes it easy to keep from freezing. Because the filter room is below ground level and the top part insulated so well the little heater I have in there rarely needs to turn on. I know because I have it hooked up to one of those power meter/ monitors. I have the heater on the frost setting which only turns it on when it drops below 1 c, so at most, it only consumes maybe $1 worth of electricity all winter. It runs so little the heater adds no significant heat to the pond water, in fact, I'm fairly certain I could get away without using it at all but I like to keep it as a backup in case the pump fails. Truthfully I think one reason the heater needs to turn on so little is the pump in there throws off enough residual heat to keep the room above freezing.

Do you have any problems with mould on the room walls?

.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Well, how about it Colleen, have you been secretly flirting with the other side behind our backs and covertly heating your pond in a vain attempt to warm your shivering koi warm?

I did also say I only heat the pond when Temps are below minus -10 or -15 Celsius. One 1500 watt heater has barely enough power to heat ALL FOUR LARGE connecting ponds and I still get ONE FOOT of ICE on bottom pond. I started covering some of the ponds because that "Peavey Mart" heater is only supposed to heat a 100 gallon horse trough and I use it to heat thousands of gallons of water, so I still get ice on bottom pond even though its covered and top pond gets ice everywhere when temps are below -20 Celsius dispite the one heater for all four ponds. The running water keeps ice down in upper ponds ...

 

[callingcolleen1]

And I have not heated pond all month of March cause its not supposed to be still cold but this is a Grand Solar Mininum and earth is cooling as we enter mini ice age. I have awoke many times this month to find top pond covered in ice, but because the water in my upper ponds is always at same level as ice, and month of March has lots of sun, ice is usually gone by morning. Ground is still frozen extremely deep this year and it won't be defrosted till at least May!!!!

 

[callingcolleen1]

Wait a minute Mucky I have had a report from one of my sources, and my sources say that she has a UTube videos that bear this out as well my friend.
So yes as you so aptly stated I believe she has gone over to the dark side
Is this true @callingcolleen1 you have gone over to the dark side and joined the Waddington band wagon, it's no wonder your koi survive the long Canadian winters without a problem every year , we areU

Dave 54

Go check out my channel, you will see tons of ice as one 1500 watt heater not enough to keep ALL FOUR connecting ponds from freezing over completely after -20 Celsius. When it is minus -30 and below, then you see tons of ice.
You have to have some heat here in Canada or I would get two feet of ice on my ponds and that would be horrible as two of my four ponds are only 3 feet deep. The new upper pond is five feet deep and the other pond is four feet deep.
That heater is meant to heat a 100 Gallon Horse trough and I have at least 5000 Gallons of water...
Your very funny Dave.... Dark side ha ha ha.

 

[callingcolleen1]

here I can be seen "secretly" heating ponds ! Who wants to break the ice ? ha ha ha

Here is Boxing Day by my ponds...