My pond heater was new in November and at that time it kept half the pond clear of ice. Slowly as time goes on and even with temperature changes, the heater is not as effective as it originally was. Is there some type of maintence that I am supposed to be doing to it or is it starting to fail already?
Question about pond heater.
How big is the pond again?
Is it possible that it took several weeks for the amount of water to cool down that much?
I don't know, just a thought. If you have doubts about it, and you still have warranty on it, I would replace it before the warranty ran out. I don't have a heater, maybe others will have ideas. Is there a customer service number on it?
Maybe you could bring it in the house, put it in tub of cold water and check temp every 20 or 30 mins. See what it does?
I found that one of my two heaters connection was poor with the outlet and it has now improved. The other one that I actually wrote about I suspect may have well water elements on the heat element. I think I will take it out and clean it with vinegar to see if it impoves.
I don't know about your pond water minerals, but here Lime Out is the only thing that cleans scale off the deicer element. I clean mine once in about mid-January. They don't really lose effectiveness as much as the water is just that much more colder at the surface. When temperatures get down to 0 or below my 1500 watt can only manage a hole about 2' across. Today at 29 degrees I have 3/4 of the 15 X 30 surface open. It's very, very weather related.
Okay that helps answer my questions.