This being my first winter with a pond, naturally I did my due googling to find out
how to go about protecting my 14 commoners from the harsh Canadian reality.
Being also somewhat frugal , or as I like to call it - practical , I voted unanimously
to keep my ice-hole open by an aerator, as I could use an aerator all year round,
and we all know you can never have too much air.
Air pump need protection too apparently so I built it a little house to shelter it
from the elements , and the two tantalizing -blue air stones sat on their own raised
nests just a foot below the surface. All worked perfectly. Life is good.
As the snow start falling and I was confined to my computer , I did some more
googling and to my lingering unease found some not so favorable opinions on
this system. Frozen airlines might stop working just when you need them most.
I definitely needed a back-up plan. It's a life-or-death situation so money no object,
I rushed and bought a black & stainless all-business 250W deicer , it will float like a
black duck , ready to be plugged-in once the bubbles slow down and freeze up.
Just to make sure this brand-new-out-of-the-packaging unit is not a defective one
and will fail me at the crucial moment I thought I’ll try it first. My pond is 2.5 feet
deep so no ice was forming yet , but at fall I had dug a smaller pond, only 12” deep and
lined it full of water , but than thought I might make a bog filter out of it next summer,
so left it as is for now. This pond had a thin crust of ice forming at the edges ,
so I thought will be perfect testing ground.
Left the deicer to float , plugged in , next to the ice crust, over night.
It worked like a charm – the morning after I found it bobbing in it's little puddle
of water while the bog-to-be pond all around it is completely frozen solid.
I was about to move it to it’s permanent station in the big fish pond when I realized
the deicer’s electrical cord is frozen solid at the bottom , and going nowhere till spring.
how to go about protecting my 14 commoners from the harsh Canadian reality.
Being also somewhat frugal , or as I like to call it - practical , I voted unanimously
to keep my ice-hole open by an aerator, as I could use an aerator all year round,
and we all know you can never have too much air.
Air pump need protection too apparently so I built it a little house to shelter it
from the elements , and the two tantalizing -blue air stones sat on their own raised
nests just a foot below the surface. All worked perfectly. Life is good.
As the snow start falling and I was confined to my computer , I did some more
googling and to my lingering unease found some not so favorable opinions on
this system. Frozen airlines might stop working just when you need them most.
I definitely needed a back-up plan. It's a life-or-death situation so money no object,
I rushed and bought a black & stainless all-business 250W deicer , it will float like a
black duck , ready to be plugged-in once the bubbles slow down and freeze up.
Just to make sure this brand-new-out-of-the-packaging unit is not a defective one
and will fail me at the crucial moment I thought I’ll try it first. My pond is 2.5 feet
deep so no ice was forming yet , but at fall I had dug a smaller pond, only 12” deep and
lined it full of water , but than thought I might make a bog filter out of it next summer,
so left it as is for now. This pond had a thin crust of ice forming at the edges ,
so I thought will be perfect testing ground.
Left the deicer to float , plugged in , next to the ice crust, over night.
It worked like a charm – the morning after I found it bobbing in it's little puddle
of water while the bog-to-be pond all around it is completely frozen solid.
I was about to move it to it’s permanent station in the big fish pond when I realized
the deicer’s electrical cord is frozen solid at the bottom , and going nowhere till spring.
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