Want to keep my pond above 60F - Zone 6b

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Hey All,

I have a 110 tuff stuff above ground stocktank pond, in zone 6b. I've got 6 tosai ranchu in there, hatched april 2016, about 4-5 inches. I want to keep them in the 60's-70's during the winter so they can continue eating/growing.

I have two options:

1: Put it in my basement. Temp there will be around 65 all winter, I'd probably add a heater to put them at 70. With this option, I will need to siphon water into my sump. Has anyone ever done this before? Could this cause problems for my sump?

2: Put it in my garage. Temps there will be around 30, but can get into the teens on really cold nights. With this option, would an aquarium heater work, set to 65 degrees? I've been looking at marineland and ehiem 300-400 watt heaters. The manufacturer websites recommend using them to heat aquariums to only 15 degrees above the ambient room temp, but obviously the ambient temp would be much greater than that. I don't want to break the heater and have a problem. What is my best heater type option here? Has anyone had success with this?

I apologize for making another thread. I was reading through others, because I'm sure the same questions are asked multiple times. But everything I found was advice on helping a pond to not freeze solid, but I want to keep mine above 60 degrees.

Thanks in advance for the advice!
 
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They will not survive out side in cold temp.s You can see that on you tube

Yes, I agree. I do not want to winter them over outside with a de-icer. I want to either keep them in the garage, with a heater keeping the water temp above 60, or in my basement. I think the basement is the best option, but do not want to break my sump pump.

Looking for people who have siphoned into their sump to make sure it will be fine. And if not, then I'm looking for a heater brand that would be able to handle heating 110 gallons to 60-70 degrees in my cold garage all winter.
 

sissy

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Are you talking about using your sump pump to change out the water.I used to use my sump pump in NJ to change the water in my fish tank .
 
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Why do you need to move all the water from the outside pond to the basement? you could just set it up with new water, bring some rocks/plants/ filter from the old pond to help restart the bio filtration should be enough. the amount of bacteria in water is not a lot, they live on surface of things.
 
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Are you talking about using your sump pump to change out the water.I used to use my sump pump in NJ to change the water in my fish tank .

Yes. I am a new homeowner, so am unsure of how it works. There is essentially a hole in my basement floor, and there is a sump pump in there. Can I just siphon the water from my pond into that hole, and the sump pump will pump it away?
 
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Why do you need to move all the water from the outside pond to the basement? you could just set it up with new water, bring some rocks/plants/ filter from the old pond to help restart the bio filtration should be enough. the amount of bacteria in water is not a lot, they live on surface of things.

I will drain the pond, and put it into my basement. I will refill with a hose from my sink. But I must continue to do weekly water changes -- I cannot just fill it and leave it all winter, since they will continue eating/pooping. Even though I will continue to run their filter and the bacteria on my media will keep ammonia down, I will have to do water changes as well.
 

sissy

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You can make a filter with a crate and lava rock and keep it in the stock tank .Anything like that that you can pull it out and clean it and put it back in .I use this in my pond in the winter .
 

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sissy

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I put the pump inside the crate or flower pot on the lava rock and the top coming out to move and aerate the water
 

Ruben Miranda

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Hello
I would not go with the garage, as the air temp with be to low and the heaters will not be able to keep it at temp.

The basement is your best bet.
Don't know how far away your basement is from your pond.
But can you get a clean barrow put it in basement and run a hose from the pond to barrow pump pond water to barrow as much as possible.
Move fish and filter or pump to circulate water to barrow.
Drain the rest of the pond move it and filter to the basement set up pond with about half water get it running pump a little more water from barrow to pond.
Let it run a hour or so make sure temp is close to the same as barrow (to avoid shock) and them move fish over to pond with the rest of water from barrow. Slowly bring the temp up to your preference.
Over the next few days keep a eye on ammonia and nitrates as.you will get a small cycle. And do water,change as needed.
You can use the sump pump to drain the water out of the basement.
That is more or less what it is there for if your basement floods the pump puses the water out.

Ruben
 

sissy

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get a thermometer for the tank also any kind will work for now .Even the ones at the dollar store .I use furniture dolly I built to roll my indoor stock tank .This way I can move it around and get a led light for some daylight if no windows .I put plywood on top of my dolly that was shaped to it and stapled old carpet to it .Made it easy to roll out of the basement and back into the basement for winter .You can also buy furniture dolly's but you may need to buy 2 of them
 
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I agree that you need to do water change but you dont need to do water change every week once the pond is establish.

You can get a cheap fountain pump and connect it to the hose for water change. I think your sump will be fine. I just never use it.
 

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