and I was lucky enough to get my pond all cleaned out two days ago ,complete with a fresh water change. What is going on in your zone???
Zone 5 Chicago is getting cold . . . nearly 32 degrees!
Yesterday it was really nice during the day, probably mid 60s and I thought I might go visit the pond after work but about mid afternoon the temperature started dropping and it was in the low 40's by the time I got home. Took the dogs for a short walk and it was inside for me! Time to pull the pumps for the year I think. We may have some warm days but not warm enough to affect dissolved oxygen so I might as well save myself from frostbite and take care of that this weekend.
I'm half a zone colder than you, here in Iowa City. My quarantine/baby koi pond is set up in the basement and there are so many leaves outside that you can't even see the hose that I staked down to mark out the area where I'm going to put the big pond next year.
It is low 40s right now and supposed to get to 20s overnight. We had a few snow flurries today and there is a chance of snow almost every day next week. I spent the past 3 hours today raking/leaf blowing/toting leaves from the rest of my yard. Tomorrow I will tackle the leaves in the proposed pond area part of the yard. Leaf raking is my LEAST favorite garden chore of the year, I just can't stand it. The worst part about it is that 75% of the leaves in my yard are from my neighbor's trees!!! :::grumble, grumble, grumble:::
At least my driveway is visible once again! Next week I will dig the Christmas lights out of the garage and basement and maybe even put up a few. Or I might rake more leaves.
Tetley: I completely forgot about the pump freezing. I'm so glad I bought these Ice fishing neoprene gloves (all the way to my elbow) from a fishing store last week. They will save my fingers from frost bite. I also bought insulated hip waders (just in case I had to go in during the winter months I wanted to have a plan in place. I guess I will be taking my pump out tomorrow morning! How do I store this pump over winter? Also, do I need to do anything to my filters at the top of my water falls for the winter?
I store my pumps in a bucket of water. Make sure you put it somewhere out of the way but where it will not freeze. Do not know about the filters. My stuff is all pretty portable.
Tet: Wow that was a quick answer. Thanks for the reply-I'm going to be working in the garden tomorrow removing that pump.
Linda
Water temps here still support keeping the pond filtration up and running. Water temps at depth are 43 for the 480 gal goldfish pond and 48 for the 2500 gal koi pond. I stopped all feeding 3 days ago when water temps dropped below 55. Looking at the local forecast I should be doing final shut down next weeked. We expect two real cold nights tonight and tomorrow ( 28 and 24 ) back to a slight warmup and then permanently below 40 daytime. I have to get a huge water lily out that still has blooms and cut it back. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Good luck with that Snapple-I would have thought you would have had everything done already (You are my time table of when to do things . . . I clipped and rearranged the plants last week and did the water change complete with a massive vacuum). I hope it's not too chilly for you!
It was miserable, but I'm done. The ponds are clean, had a fresh water exchange and salted up ( all about 10 days ago ). I cut back that enormous water lily today. It nearly took me back into the pond with it. It's in a big Lotus tub with 50 lbs. of kitty litter. Next spring when I divide and repot I'm going to have a whole lot of water lily 'Colorado" to ship off to any interested DG'r.
I'll probably run the pumps and filters until Saturday and then pull 'em and plunk in the deicers. That will give the filters time to pull out any debris that got stirred up with my foolling around in there with the lily. I tend to hold off shutting off the pumps until weather forecast says the daytime temps won't get above 40. My pond is full sun. It can get green water real quick if the water is warm and there is no circulation past the UV's. I really depend too on the remote pond themometers. They tell me when things need doing. The koi look great, fat and still moving around fairly energetically. By the middle of this week though they will be in the lowest part of the pond and completely still. Geez, I don't like the winter season. It's just too darned long.
mm - got your deicers ready to go in?
My deicers is already in (I only put in one although I own two of them). This morning the pond had a thin sheet of ice on and I was feeling really bad about the fishes being in the water all naked and cold . . . The deicer kept an air open in the thin sheet of ice (it made me more comfortable to know it works). Should I put in more than one deicer???
Linda
Depends. How hard would it be to get it in place in a hurry if need be? I just put one in each pond. The backups are right where I can grab them quickly. As long as I can get through any snow to the pond mine are'nt hard to place and plug in. Once plugged in they melt through any ice to get some water open fairly quickly.
For the first time in 8 yrs I actually have a pump and waterfall running the same time I have a deicer running. The weather took an unexpected dip today to below freezing. I had planned on pulling the pumps this weekend. There was just no time today to do all that. The small pond water temp was dropping way to low for my taste so I put the deicer in. It brought the temp right back up. A 1000 watt deicer in a 480 gal pond almost acts like a heater. Tomorrow I have time to get the pump out. The weather forecast here has changed twice daily since Friday. It's nuts. You can't plan for anything but to be a Boy Scout - Be Prepared!
It is sad to see the koi all so still in the deep part of the pond. The koi pond is currently holding at 47. Not bad.