When to start?

herzausstahl

herzausstahl
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Hello everyone, as most of you know this is my first summer/winter with my pond and I was wondering when everyone starts to winterize their pond? I understand about not feeding fish after the water temp drops below 50 degrees (yes I need a thermometer for my pond, but the little guys are just eating algae now anyway so not a problem this year), but at what temperature do you remove the filter and pump? I'm zone 4a/5b so it will get well below freezing here. My pond is 3'3" at the deepest part, could probably get it to 3'5"-3'6" if I put a cap on my overflow drain. So I plan on leaving my pumps in the bottom of the pond turned off where it won't freeze and blowing air in the water tubing (2" Flex PVC and 1 1/2" corrugated tubing). I plan on shutting down my stream at the end of this month and then leaving the filter running for awhile. The question is at what consistent temp should I pull my filter for winter storage and winterize that pump? To keep a hole in the ice I will have a smaller pump that will go on a ledge about 16" below the surface of the water and be connected to a bubbling fountain head, it is a 450 gph pump so it will move a huge amount of water, but enough to keep a hole in the ice. If that doesn't work, I will pick up a de-icer on ebay.
 

taherrmann4

Tmann
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I leave my entire system going for as long as possible. When the low temps consistently start getting into the mid to low 20's I will shut it down. It takes me a few hours to shut it all down and drain the lines and I don't want to be doing this when it gets any colder than that.
 

herzausstahl

herzausstahl
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Taherrmann4,
I was planning on leaving the filter as long as possible, but was unsure once we got in the low 30s upper 20s consistently how long it would take for anything to freeze. How do you do with water loss as the temperature drops? Don't want to freeze my outdoor faucet line adding water too late, but at least I can shut off the faucet inside the house and drain the excess water out.
Thanks,
Nathan
 

addy1

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We will leave ours running for a while, to shut it down takes loosening one nut on two flexible connections, carry the pump inside........done. The stream, just pull the pump, the lines drain themselves. Not sure of when we will pull it down, but sometime as it gets colder and colder.
 

taherrmann4

Tmann
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Taherrmann4,
I was planning on leaving the filter as long as possible, but was unsure once we got in the low 30s upper 20s consistently how long it would take for anything to freeze. How do you do with water loss as the temperature drops? Don't want to freeze my outdoor faucet line adding water too late, but at least I can shut off the faucet inside the house and drain the excess water out.
Thanks,
Nathan

Nathan last year I had mine going still when temps lowered to about 25 and did not see any problems, the pond temp was still around 40 during the day and not sure what temp it dropped to in the morning b/c I never checked. As far as water loss goes I have only had to fill mine a few times before I shut it off, but my faucets are protected as well and I keep them on until I shut the pond down. During the winter while it is off I don't worry about it, nature seems to take pretty good care of the water level, I also have less evaporation when the falls and creeks are shut down. Keep in mind when you do shut it down that all the water from your creek will drain into your pond filling it up so you may not want to add water a few days before then otherwise your just sort of wasting it. My creeks and falls will add about 1.5" to my pond when they shut down. Don't forget to pick up a thermometer for your pond.
 

taherrmann4

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Nice one, I like how it has a 3 day history graph. Now if you could somehow have it upload temp data high and lows for each day to your pc and track over time.
 

addy1

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laughing tmann..............my weather station does that, uploads wind rain etc etc and graphs it for me. The pond does swing up and down in temp, even with mine as big as it is. But that is surface temp, the probe goes down around 3 inches.
 

taherrmann4

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I wonder how big of a difference the surface temp or 3" down is from the bottom of the pond temp? Mine only measures about 5" down. What kind of weather station do you have?
 

addy1

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I have a davis. Have had one at every house I have lived in, love to watch the weather. It uploads all of our data to the national site.
I can put in our findu location or Davis weather link into the web and see what is happening here weather wise. Was fun to watch when the hurricane was coming and we weren't home.

My wind gauge died at 140 mph during the storm in phoenix in the late 90's that took our roof off. I was bummed wanted to see how high it went lol.
 

taherrmann4

Tmann
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I have a davis. Have had one at every house I have lived in, love to watch the weather. It uploads all of our data to the national site.
I can put in our findu location or Davis weather link into the web and see what is happening here weather wise. Was fun to watch when the hurricane was coming and we weren't home.

My wind gauge died at 140 mph during the storm in phoenix in the late 90's that took our roof off. I was bummed wanted to see how high it went lol.
My mother in law loves the weather I think she is borderline obsessive about it. She will watch the weather channel for 8 straight hours.
 

addy1

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My mother in law loves the weather I think she is borderline obsessive about it. She will watch the weather channel for 8 straight hours.

I am not that bad.......but love to see the amount of rain coming down in a down pour, how many inches, in a storm etc.
heat index........chill factor, drive my honey crazy....esp when heat index was hitting 116 here with humidity, he doesn't want to know.
 

sissy

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hey I like the weather channel too does that mean I'm getting old LOL
 
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So I am thinking this year I will turn off my waterfall due to having to add tons of water last year..if I did that what would I need to add for oxygen? The only pump I have runs to my waterfall which I store in my skimmer..would a small pump work?
 

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