GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

27-01-2004, 05:44 PM

EROSPAM (Ka30P) wrote in message ...
Dave wrote And just how do you keep a hole in the ice on a remote pond?

No power out there, eh?
Then I suggest you make the pond as big
as you can afford. Stock it very lightly with a some rosie red
minnows or use mosquito dunks to keep the mosquito larvae down.
No lilies in the pond, unless you remove them before winter (plant
in pots). That way you won't have the problem with an over abundance
of rotting vegetation and fish waste to produce toxic gasses.
Any severe winter is going to cause aquatic animal deaths but the
cleaner the pond is going into the winter the better the critters
will do who spend the winter under the ice. Another way is to fill
a milk jug with black sand and place a couple of them around the
pond. Works in milder winters.

The black jug idea makes me wonder. Maybe a black copper pipe stuck in
the ice? The area gets some sun in the winter so maybe a solar cell
could do something. I could probably carry an airtank down there
occasionally and drive a pike through the ice and then inject air into
the water, but from my compressor the air might be tainted with a bit
of oil vapor so I don't know if this would accomplish more harm than
good. Alternately maybe I could vent the tank slowly and create a few
hours of bubbles. What about plants such as cattails? As far as size
I'm hoping for around ten feet in diameter and a few feet deep, but
should I create a shallower shoreline?