Hi Mike,

I also live in Montreal and keep goldfish over winter in an outdoor
pond. I use an upside down Rubbermaid container that contains 2 x
25Watt electric bulbs. The heat from the bulbs keeps a hole in the ice
and 10 out of 11 goldfish survived the winter. The inverted Rubbermaid
container is kept afloat by "swimming pool noodles" attached to the rim
of the container. This was the first year that I have used this heater.
Improvements for next year will be to use polystyrene to insulate the
sides of the container to make it more efficient.

Regards,

Graham





TheStealth Wrote:
Well winter is over here in Montreal and the ice is almost gone from my
small ~800gal pond. I have a few questions to ask before I start
cleaning
it out and reintroducing my goldfish.This will be my 3rd season with a
pond
and for the past two years I have managed to control the suspended
algae
with a few different versions of DIY filters but I always been getting
some
nasty string algae outbreaks. I want to know what can I do to prevent
these
outbreaks. I have heard that leaving some barley straw in the pond
will
help control it. Is this true? Are there other techniques to control
it?

The second this I want to ask about is pond de-icers. I have 13
goldfish
and have to keep them in two separate aquariums over the winder months
because my pond freezes solid. Next fall I am afraid the fish will
have
gotten too big to keep indoors in two aquariums and I don't have place
to
set up a third. I was thinking of leaving them in the pond over the
winter
but to introduce a pond heater/de-icer. Is this feasible? If so what
kind
of de-icers should I be looking at? Any model or brand that you would
recommend?

Thanks for any info.

Mike


--
brewerg