After you drill the opening, it can be reopened daily with
either the drill or with a teakettle filled with hot water.
The opening doesn't have to be open all the time, but it
should be reopened daily.
Bonnie
NJ

Gale Pearce wrote:
Is it possible to use a cordless drill with a "spade" bit to drill a 1" hole
to allow you to put an airstone just below the surface of the ice ?
Gale :~)
"BTC/TAK on ACK" wrote in message
...

When a bike-path was put in along my property line a couple of years ago
there were a lot of electric service lines cut or "nicked". It appears
nicked can be worse because it can take a few years before the line
deteriorates. All of a sudden mid-day early in the week my power just went
out! I was "lucky" that I got "temporary" power by the weekend... it will

be

weeks [or more] until another permanent line can be trenched in because of
deep frost. We had succeeded in keeping our pond partially open all

winter,

but it froze over during the time we had no power... pretty thickly in

fact.

In a way that might have been a good thing because since then we had a few
heavy "freezing rains" that flooded much of our yard. We chose the spot

for

our pond to avoid any flooding problem. It looks like it's in the lowest
part of our property, so it appears to be a natural occurrence. But

actually

there's a large hidden area which is quite a bit lower. Flooding has never
gone beyond that area until this weekend, when it was almost a foot over

the

pond, and the top of that even froze over until late yesterday. I was

afraid

the pond itself wasn't frozen quite enough to keep some "adventurous" fish
from escaping into the flood water before the flooding subsided...
especially since the ground is frozen so deeply that it's hardly absorbing
any water. It's apparently absorbing more than we had any reason to

expect,

though, because the water over the pond area is gone [and no dead fish

left

behind, thank God]. The pond itself is still frozen over though. I'm

afraid

to "mechanically" break through the ice in the pond, with an axe for
example, having heard that is dangerous for the fish. On the other hand

I'm

afraid to leave it frozen over much longer because of gaseous build-up

under

the ice. I had effectively been keeping it clear with air bubbles, and
circulating water until last week, but that's not an option now. Any
suggestions?