Looking for heater/deicer suggestions for 2000 gal pond

This will be the third winter for our pond. We have kept two different kinds of deicers and an air pump going the previous two winters. The reason we kept three kinds going is that we were afraid one might fail at -20 temp. heavy snow and wind. Last winter one deicer did fail and the air line to the air pump froze from condensation. In mid Feb we were down to one deicer and one tiny little hole for a large surface area. I had to have a deicer overnighted from an online pond store and use heated water to melt the ice to get it in. We succeded but it wasn't fun. Are there any really reliable deicers or heaters? Should I try one that rests on the bottom instead? The pond has various depths, a pebble beach that slopes to 6 in and drops off to 2 ft, a 1ft level and a 3 1/2 ft.

Save your self some time, money, and frustration. We use a cattle tank floating stock tank heater, They are about $20.00 at TSC farm stores. My DH tied the cord to a 2x4, 10 feet long and places the 2x4 across the narrow end of the pond. Keeps the water open with a circle of about 1 1/2 feet all winter long. There is a thermostat built in so it doesn't run all the time only when the temp gets below freezing(in the water). We have been using the same one for 5 years and haven't had a problem or lost any fish.
Hope this helps

annabelle15, Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! That is a perfect solution. The pond is 15' across at narrowest, but two joined pieces of pvc pipe should do the trick. We have a TSC about 5 miles from here. Great stores arn't they!? I think you know your way around them much better than I do!

Happy ponding.
Annabelle

I tie three pieces of rope to the heater's outside ring, which isn't hot, and tie them to stakes on the edges of the pond. Two pieces would probably do just as well. The heater comes on when the water drops below 39 degrees.

As you can see I'm in zone 4. We usually get a bit of brisk weather for a couple of months. Last year we only had 14" of ice on the pond. The year before 18". The only thing we've ever used is a bubbler. Details are:
http://www.cems.uvm.edu/~hemenway/WaterGarden/bubbler/Bubbler%20construction.pdf
This is a pdf document that you can download and read at your leisure. The cost data is a bit dated but the relative costs should be about the same. Hope this is of some help.

I have installed and tethered the stock tank heater in the 2000 gal. pond and although it is early it looks like this is going to work very well. Also I have a smaller 400 gal pond in which we installed the bubbler. I am also impressed with this arrangement. For the first time this year I have remote thermometers in both the ponds with which I can record the daily high and low temperatures. This ought to be interesting.

I have a tank heater with it's wire attachment to keep it from melting the liner ...It worked fine in keeping a small area open but it eats alot of electricity... I have also just left my pump going all winter keeping it attached to my in water filter W/O filter medium so it wouldn't clog but keep any large stuff still out of my pump and attached a small pvc piping to make a small fountain...it also worked fine except you needed to break the ice castle that eventually "arose" around the fountain pipe...but no big deal. Then last winter I just said screw it and did nothing and 98% of my fish survived... I might add don't attempt this in zone 3-4 unless you have a really deep pond but for most everyone else I think we all worry about our gold fish a bit TOO much ...Now koi I can't speak for but most common goldies can take just about anything unless the pond is totally frozen solid or you have hundredes of fish using tons of air ...and in that case they probably need thinning out anyway ;>) David

Dave, I fear you might be right about electricity consumption. I have the same heater with the guard you describe. It is 18 degrees here and has been in the low 20's for three days and I have no ice on a 15x20 2000 gal pond (deepest part 3 feet). In fact my biggest koi was swimming around this morning just under the surface around the heater like it is spring! I dont have the courage to run the pump sans filtration all winter. Afraid of a freeze up. The system is a savio skimmer and filter through a 3 ft waterfall. I would have to run a different hose from the pump to the pond bypassing the waterfall altogether. A local pond store tried running their savio system all winter two years ago and it was a disaster. We had -15 temps followed by an overnight power failure due to high winds. You can guess the rest! I didn't lose any fish due to winter kill last year. But racoons in the spring were trouble. They waddel right past my dogs and go fishing. Literally! I lost two koi. They were too big for the racoon to haul off and they escaped to the deep part of the pond. The were so mauled however that they died within a day. This spring we are going to put a net at night over the beach area where the varmints can too easily enter the water. It is just a small shallow shelf at one side of the pond that we planned as part of the design to give our dogs a safe place to haul out if they went into the pond. Instead we created a fishing platform for raccoons as well as wild ducks. The ducks I don't mind. They are here for only a few days during migration and the dogs keep them on edge. But I have to have the only dogs in the world that don't keep raccoons away. I swear to god that they walk side by side to the pond like they have a common interest. These obviously are not hunting dogs. lol Mary

The reason I continue to use a bubbler unit is that the costs are minor (less than $3-$4 per month). That and plus it works - even here in zone 4. On another website we had a discussion with a manufacturer's rep for those stock tank heaters. Apparently the majority of problems and complaints they get are from the use in ponds/water gardens. Seems the relatively high alkalinity and hardness that we maintain in our ponds appears to cause more unit failures than normal. If I recall the numbers correctly - sales to water garden applications represented less than 20% of the total sales but represented something in excess of 80% of the problems. But the plus with the heater is that if it fails or if you have a power outage then just replacing it or waiting until power is restored works fine. On the other hand, my yankee genetic code just won't let me give that $80-$100 per month to the power company!! :-))

DRH2, I just know you are right. For the time being I feel committed to the stock tank heater, at least until the first full month's electric bill comes. Thanks for the info about failure. I will be prepared with a replacement just in case. We had very high winds the other day and a tree limb came flying from the neighbors and sailed right into the pond narrowly missing the heater. I shudder to think what would have happend if it had sustained a direct hit. There is no end to winter problems around here and I am not even dealing with your temps. Zone 4 must be a challenge. The last two years in zone 5a have been really interesting. About ph and kh what numbers are you talking about? My pond stays at about 7.6 to 7.8 with hardness in the moderate range. We do get a lot of gunk buildup on any metal deicer or heater. I have to wirebrush it off and use lemon juice to really clean them up for the next season.

Snapple, I believe it wasn't so much a problem with the pH but rather the hardness and alkalinity. I typically am running a hardness around 60 - 100 mg/L or so (but I don't check it very often). I keep the alkalinity (KH) generally above 100 mg/L and will even add a bit of baking soda throughout the winter to keep it up there. As a result the pH is typically locked in at 8.3. However, because of the typical hardness & alkalinity numbers that most of us usually have in our ponds you'll see very rapid buildup of scale on a heater (the white-ish stuff that you have to wire brush off or use a mild acid to remove). This causes corrosion on the surface of the heater and also if you don't remove it then it will act as an insulator reducing the amount of heat transferred. The rep didn't say specifically where the things usually fail - whether through corrosion or salts working their way in along the "sealed" electrical junction - just that the rate of failure was much, much higher when used in water gardens/ponds.

As to heat or aerate - whatever works and whatever you're comfortable with; I wouldn't try an aerator on a pond much under 700-800 gallons in this zone although you'd probably be fine in a warmer zone. But like I said above - I do like the fact that it's cheap and has worked well. It also provides active gas stripping (ammonia and CO2) even when there's ice cover - all that air has to escape somewhere!!

Snapple 45 ...yes I bypassed my waterfall and in two of my ponds and my ceramic spittin' fish in the third and just ran the pump with a2 ft straight up pvc pipe for about the last 7-8 years during the winter ...it worked fine and i said I took the filter media out cause if it clogged it would be too cold to clean out ...and the small holes of the filter housing keep all but litttle stuff out. I have coon troubles too ...even though my dogs chase them out occasionally they feast...one time my dogs had a 25lb coon cornered in one of my ponds resting on my lotus pot...they are nasty critters had to drag the dogs away and he or she eventually took off David

DRH2,
I have heard other concerns about heaters (prematurely tricking fish into thinking it was spring, leading to their death) so I am interested in a bubbler. Where is a good place to get one?

Someone mentioned that we worry too much about our fish. I was unable to keep a hole open in my pond the past 2 winters which were unusually cold. Both times all my fish survived. Once before, they all died. Any good studies comparing heaters, bubblers and doing nothing?
Dave

snapple45 I have a 1400 gallon pond with various depts like yours and in the middle it is 3 feet deep-10 by 9 feet--some of my koi are 2 feet long this will be the second year to over winter my fish in it--last year I ran my pump all year round--it is a 3000 gallon pump--I took out my filter in my skimmer and used a cattle tank heater and one of the circle heaters and put them both in front of the skimmer--I had some ice around the edges and on the waterfall --we also had a some what mild weather for us--my pond never froze over and all my fished lived-so hoping this year it works again--my friend has a 5000 gallon pond and she puts a big hut over hers and runs a bubbler just under the surface to keep the water moving in it--her koi are 10 years old and big and she has never lost a fish over winter--she has had her pond for 12 years--so good luck Cheryl

Dave47, I've not seen any studies of side-by-side comparisons of stock heaters, aerators, tents, running the pump, etc. So we're pretty much stuck with anecdotal info. But whatever works....that's just fine as far as I'm concerned. I have noticed that there has, in the past, been numerous, individual reports of unit failures with those commercial floating heaters sold by many water gardening centers - the 100 watt units that are supposed to float in the pond and keep it open.

As to what and where to make or buy an aeration system... I posted a web document (PDF format) earlier in this thread that gives details. If you (or anyone else) can't open the document or you'd rather have it in a MSWord or WordPerfect format just drop me an e-mail and I'll send it to you. Essentially it's nothing more than an air pump from one of the large pet stores. I'm using an Optima air pump rated at 4.5 Liters/min (free air capacity). The pump is housed in a Styrafoam box that I made (you can use upside down milk crates or rubbermaid containers) which is only important to keep water, snow, rain off the pump and the plug but still allow it to draw all of the air from outside. You DON'T want to put the pump in somewhere where it's warm and cozy because the moist air will then freeze in the air line (yep, I ran THAT experiment!:-)). Then I run silicone rubber tubing (it's more flexible than the vinyl tubing) to an aerator bar. I'm currently using one of the blue-colored, 12" long air stones suspended from a Styrafoam float rather than just laying it on the bottom.

I'm always happy with the do nothing option. Unfortunately, in my zone I doubt that's an option that anyone wants to test - not when I'm seeing 14"-18" of ice on the pond. My pond's only 3 feet deep and around 3000 gallons. If I had something that was 8 feet deep, spring fed, etc. then I'd not bother with it.

DRH2, Thank you very much. I'll investigate aerators further.
Dave

Snapple, How is the deicer doing??? We just got our first really cold weather and mine is humming along. In the middle and going strong, I don't have build up at all on mine. The birds like the open hole, there were several doves and a few finches there drinking this AM. So you see you can help nature too.The deer drink at the water fall, I leave it going all winter, So I have two open spots.

Annabelle15, the deicer is working vey, very well at this point. I got a remote weather station for my birthday two weeks ago and am now able to monitor the water temperature in both the ponds. The 380 gal (gold fish only maximum depth 2 ft) with a simple small deicer is 38.5 (outdoor temp 26.) The 2000 gal pond temp with stock tank heater is 40.9 at 3 ft. There doesn't appear to be any buildup. We tethered the stock tank heater over the deepest part of the pond. The open area is very big. So far I really like what I see . I am prepared with backups in case of failure. In fact I lost a deicer in the small pond already. We had extremely high winds and the heater somehow flipped over and got full of water! Nobody (or fish) got electrocuted luckily. It was one of those round doughnut shaped black ones that leave just a small opening in the ice. We have a forecasted low of fourteen tonight and no above 32 temps expected for several days so all the heaters/deicers are going to get a workout. Could you post a picture of your waterfall going in the winter? I would love to see it. I'll bet is great to watch. I am just too big a chicken to try it. I am afraid of freezing up and damaging the rock work around the waterfall. Also I read somewhere that running a water fall in winter might superchill the water. Mine is a 20 in weir with a pretty good pour out. I use it as much as an areator as an esthetic addition. Pic's, please!

Snappie, Don't worry about the water fall, mine runs 24/7 all year and for the past 3 winters. Fish are fine, pond is 3 feet deep by 12by 11, about 1700 gallons and everyone is fine..Waterfall keeps a good size hole and the sound is a little bit strange during a snow storm but it works.
Don't worry about the water getting to cold for the fish, when I was a kid we left our gold fish in the horse tank(1000 gal) over winter, the tank froze but in the spring the fish were swimming around after the thaw. They are a strong breed whether they are goldfish, koi or ???.
NOW JUST THINK OF EVERYTHING YOU'LL HAVE TO DO ONCE SPRING GETS HERE,I'VE MADE RESERVATIONS TO HAVE MINE CLEANED. SO HERE WE GO ON ANOTHER SUMMER OF PONDERING.(CAN'T WAIT TILL THE THAW)HAVE A GOOD NEW YEAR
ANN

annabelle15, heater still working great. I took it out and cleaned off the scale from the heating element once. It needed it. I plan on doing it again the end of next week. I am already stocking up on the stuff I need to get started in the spring. Its what keeps me sane in the winter. All the fish look good at this point, still plump and moderatly active in the warmer water. The water has grown some algae due to the warmer than average temps the last two weeks, but nothing serious. You wouldnt happen to have any advice on repotting a water lilly would you? It should have been done last year but I let it go. This year is an absolute must. When I buy the from the pond stores they are planted in regular soil. The books I have read advise againt this and recommend that kitty litter stuff. I have used it (kitty litter stuff) for other plants and if the koi knock the pot around it dumps out and makes a mess. I would really like to try a regular soil. Do you know what the pond stores or growers use?

Snapple-
I've used regular kitty litter before and had success. The thing is, Iet it soak for several days, until it makes, well, clay.....I then put it into the bottom of my planter, add the plant, and gently add more on top. I then put a layer or normal aquarium gravel on top (it comes in black from the pet stores) The fish can't get to the clay, even if they rumble around a bit in the gravel, and the gravel hides the white color the clay becomes once it's wet.
MerryMary

I love this place! There are so many bright people generous with their advice!! I assume , MerryMary that you use the inexpensive untreated kind of litter with no chemicals. That is exactly what I am going to do. I am almost looking forward to plunging my arms into 45 degree water to pull the pot up and get started. I am swithching a goldfish freshwater aquarium to a tropical planted aquarium (70gal) so gravel will not be a problem. I might use some small flat river stones I have leftover from another project too to cover the clay.
Snapple

Absolutely snapple! The cheapest cat litter available, which usually means there's nothing in it but clay! No scent, no absorbing anything, no scoopable anything, no sparkly anything....Explain more about what you mean by "tropical planted aquarium"......I have tropical plants growing in mine, and still have the goldfish, so wonder if youre thinking along those lines or something else?
:)
MerryMary

I have five orandas and a koi in the tank now. The koi is going in the pond in the spring. He is a youngster and a closeout bargain butterfly koi at the end of the season last fall, not conditioned enough to overwinter outside. He (?) absolutely wrecks every plant within a few days. And did I mention the phenominal growth!!! Anyway, I am switching to a heated tank with tetras, chiclids and other tropical fish as soon as the plant wrecker goes outside. I will be starting over with new substrate, ditching the undergravel filter and power heads, keeping the Fluval 404 and starting over, basically. This setup is four years old, having run continuosly. I lost a beloved 6 yr old calico oranda, Thelma, early in 2005 and it kind of bummed me out. :{ I miss her. She actually spawned in the tank but the fry never survived very long. I didnt make any effort to save them and the filter got em. I have a 40 gal quarantine tank I could have used but what would I done with them if they survived? Sooooooooo, here comes a new experience!

Snap. Repotting ???? Everytime I try to the koi knock over the pots and the pants have ended up in the bottom of the pond.............. Results,, more blossoms and larger leaves that ever, so mine are staying in the bottom of the pond. :ast year and the year before I couldn't do much work to the pond( I had major back surgery), so the pond only got the filters changes and algae treated, but this year, I'm feeling about 75% and can move a lot better , so look out pond.
We have had such mild weather here and not much snow that I've been getting a lot done in and around the pond. The waterfall has been keeping the pond open and the fish are moving around like spring is here. We even have a pair of Cardinals building a nest and tullips up about 3 inches. Got a little snow last night but it will be gon by tonight.

Wow annabelle15. It never occurred to me to just let the tubors do their own thing. I might give that a try. I am going to have plenty to work with when I repot. I get the major back surgery thing. My husband had a blowout at L2 last January with immediate surgery. He is better but not perfect, probably won't be 100%. What do you do for your algae? I have tried algaefix. It works well. SAB seems to take care of the string algae and is less harsh on the other plants. I think I will go back to SAB exclusively next year. My water lettuce did not like the algaefix, nor did the water hyacinths. The roots appeared stunted. It had no effect on the rushes or the water lillies, both tropical and hardy. Have you ever tried barley straw? I am tempted until I look at the size of the bales I would have to have laying around the bottom of the pond. They don't look real great and I understand that it takes awhile befor they work. The weather here too has been wonderfully mild. But there is no sign of tulips or bird nesting activity. What we do have is a huge mature female Cooper's hawk dining on the birds at the bird feeders! Nature in the raw if you will. She hunts our backyard daily. I am not sure our chihuahua is safe! I have seen her swoop and capture birds several times and fly up to the neighbors pin oak and eat them on a large limb. I always know when she is around. There is absolutely no other bird activity at the feeders, all 9 of them. It does cut down on the seed bill!

Hello, snapple 45 in Holland! I'm not far from you over in Sylvania township off King Road - and very near the TSC. Funny to meet you here!

I leave my waterfall on all year and have a small de-icer which leaves an open hole when it freezes which the birds and squirrels can drink from - which hasn't been much this year. This is the 2nd year I've left my waterfall on and it's been just fine. It sure saves a lot of work in the fall and spring hauling it in and out. I tried it based on the pond guy who has helped with some repairs on the pond. We had it built when we built the house about 9 years ago, but a not-too-smart person unfortunately built it, so it was a battle with leaks the first few years until I found a new guy to repair it, etc.

Nice to meet you ehamilton! I am very near Angola & Mc Cord. However Angola & MCCord I think is in zone 5a isn't it? Anyway I am just too chicken to try the waterfall in the winter thing. I heard what happened out at that pond store in Swanton about three yeags ago and it scared me. One of the clerks who works there told me that the ice pushed out a lot of the rock work , there was a power failure, and it was a mess. My back yard pond (2000 gal) waterfall is a Savio filter falls with a skimmer and the waterfall is up above the pond about 21/2 ft. There is a lot of splash, but no leaks. I am thinking about redoing the waterfall part (nothing is cemented). I have battled a slow leak we can't find in my front pond for two years now. The front is small, 330 gal. The pump sits at the bottom of the pond with a Cyprio bioforce filter. The waterfall on that one is about 4 ft. There is an upper pool, a short stream that takes a turn and spills into the bottom pond. Where the leak is we don't know except that it is somewhere out the back of the waterfall. The pond is 5 yrs old and no problem until fall of 2004. This spring I am going to find it no matter what. If I bypass the waterfall I have no leak. But I'll be darned if we can find exactly where. My husband "rearranged" the pump connections in the back pond so that even I can do it alone in about an hour. I usually do a 25% water change in the spring so while the water drains I put in the pumps and filters. Do you filter in the winter or leave them out? Right now I am starting to get green water. The pond is full sun and you know what that means.

Back Pond

Front Pond

Very, very new to this pond business. Has anyone put their pot inside a nylon stocking to keep the fish from poking at it? That's assuming the pot is submerged.

SNAPPLE, I HAVE A MESH BAG WITH BARLEY STRAW UNDER THE WATER FALL AND CHANG IT EVERY 2 MONTHS.. IUSE A BAG THAT YOU CAN WASH NYLONS IN IN THE WASHER, THE MESH IS FINE ENOUGH TO KEEP THE BARLEY FROM ESCAPING, AT THE END OF THE 2ND MONTH I PUT A NEW BAG NEXT TO THE OLD ONE, AND THEN AT THE END OF THE NEXT MONTH I PULL THE OLD BAG, THAT WAY THE NEW BARLEY HAS HAD A CHANCE TO START WORKING.4 CHANGES A YEAR IS NOT THAT BAD. IN THE SPRING I START WITH AN ALGAEFIX APPLICATION, MAKING SUREI MIX IT JUST RIGHT, BY THE TIME I GET MY FLOATERS THE ALGAE FIX IS GONE AND THE BARLEY HAS TAKEN OVER.
AS TO THE BACK SURGERY I'M A PRO, I HAVE 24 INCHES OF METAL 8 PLATES AND 16 SCREWS SO I KNOW WHERE YOUR COMING FROM, DR SAID I'LL NEVER BE 100% BUT IT BEATS A WHEELCHAIR
DON'T WORRY SO MUCH ABOUT THE POND, THEY HAVE BEEN TAKING CARE OF THEMSELVES FOR EONS. I DON'T USE CHEMICALS EXCEPT ALGAEFIX, AND THE BARLEY STRAW,
AND THE POND STAYS CLEAR ALL YEAR.
WE HAVE A MEMBER OF OUR POND CLUB THAT IS CONSTANTLY MESSING WITH HIS POND AND HE HAS ALL KNIDS OF TROUBLE. OUR EXPERT TRIES TO TELL HIM TO LEAVE IT ALONG BUT HE WONT LISTEN.
AS FOR THE HAWK,QUIT FEEDING FOR A COUPLE WEEKS, SHE WILL GO AWAY IF THERE ARE NO BIRDS TO PICK ON.
AT LEAST IT WORKS HERE, GOOD LUCK

Katy,
I've never stuck a pot in a nylon stocking, but I have purchased nylon jersey fabric (the mesh kind with holes) and put the soil in it, the rootball, and a rock, then tied it closed loosely around the stem of my submerged plant. I bought black, so you can't see the plant "bean bags" I drop around the pond. Sometimes if I don't have a rock to add, I use black aquarium gravel and add it to the bean bag soil. So far my plants have remained healthy, this fish can't pick at the roots, and the water flows through the mesh.
MerryMary

Wow, what a good tip MerryMary! Thanks. That's definitely a print and save. Putting aquariam gravel in the bag will allow me to do plantings on the slopes.