Fishkeeping - heating ponds

We use to have a ponder who posted from Sweden I believe it was. When his
pond froze over he'd suck out the first 3" or so and have an air space with
a dome of ice. Kept the surface from freezing over there after. This
probably works great where once it freezes solid it doesn't thaw out till
spring. ~ jan

On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 22:26:25 -0500, "bjt" wrote:

Thank you for the information.
My pond is about 10' by 16' so its not practical for me to build a tent over
it..especially as we tend to get multple feet of snow here in New England.

In past years I've used surface agiation to keep at least a part of the
surface clear of ice but its a pretty unstable solution IMHO. All it take
is a pretty brief power outage and everything freezes up. After three years
of at least one emergency per winter I'm ready to try something else.

I like the idea of some kind of supported cover but not sure if I can pull
it off for my size pond.

If I use one or more floating heaters to keep air holes, but let the rest of
the surface freeze (and then cover with ice), will that ice/snow also act as
an insulator for the remaining water?

Brian

"RichToyBox" wrote in message
news:_jTmb.27496$ao4.41175@attbi_s51...
The cover needs to be supported above the surface of the water to allow
for
the gas exchanges. The dead air above the pond is one type of insulation,
the cover acts as a wind break, and a barrier to the exchange of warm air
with the cold air outside. The ground temperature, at about 1 or 2 feet
below the frost line is a fairly constant temperature in the low to mid
50's. This heat from the ground is transported into the pond and keeps
the
pond warming. The amount of insulation at the top should be enough to
prevent freezing of the pond. Also the cover acts like a greenhouse and
allows for some solar heating if it is not covered in snow. If it is
covered in snow, then the snow is another good layer of insulation,
helping
to keep the pond warm.
--
RichToyBox
http://www.geocities.com/richtoybox/pondintro.html

"bjt" wrote in message
...
I'm curious about people putting what sounds like pool covers over their
ponds to keep the heat in and prevent evaporative cooling. Here in New
England my pond (4-5 foot deep) gets a 1-2 foot layer of solid ice over
most
of the surface (except where I actively prevent it). So, won't any sort
of
pond cover just get frozen into the ice eventually?

Brian Tarbox

"~ jan JJsPond.us" wrote in message
...
The big advantage however is keeping my filter system up & running,
as
I'm
100% convinced that one should not stop filtering a koi pond. The
bacteria
will survive, they will go dormant or perform at a very very low
level,
but
they will still be there when spring kicks in.

In agreement there. I was just reading a short print out regarding
this,
that the bacteria don't die, they just go dormant. I assume freezing
solid
might do them in, but with slow circulation they should hang in there.
Not
sure how I'm going to implement this with my system, but I do plan to
keep
some of the bio-foam in operation this season some how.

I just wished I'd read it earlier as I could have cleaned some of the
bio-foam earlier when it was warmer. ~ jan

See my ponds thru the seasons and/or my filter design:
http://users.owt.com/jjspond/

~Keep 'em Defrosted~
Tri-Cities, WA Zone 7a
To e-mail see website

See my ponds thru the seasons and/or my filter design:
http://users.owt.com/jjspond/

~Keep 'em Defrosted~
Tri-Cities, WA Zone 7a
To e-mail see website