I am zone 5 sorta b too. for me the problem is the length of time my fish are
"down".. that is, the water temp drops below 50oF and their immunity is down and they
dont eat. with just the air stone and a pump running the temp was below 50 for 6
months of the year, from Oct 15th or so to April 15th or so. Too long, too harsh.
after the pond froze over the second year when the electricity went out I decided to
put a lean to over the pond.
last year I also put in a 500 watt aquarium heater and the temp stayed above 50o for
all but one month.
http://www.mu.edu/~buxtoni/mypond/winters/winter.htm
the fish looked a lot better this spring. I was very careful feeding them, only a
little bit, and not every day and checking ammonia all the time.
I sure would like a web cam in there to watch my fish, I just dont know where to
start. Ingrid

"Bill Stock" wrote:
I'm going to leave the fishes in the pond this year, as their indoor cousins
are maxing out my tanks.

So the plan is to leave the pump going beneath the surface (1') and put one
of the 100 watt heaters within a couple of feet of the pump. I'm also
tempted to cover the pond with 2" of stryofoam sandwhiched between a couple
of sheets of plywood. Perhaps paint the plywood black for the solar heating.

Opinions please.

BTW: I'm in zone 5b, pond is roughly 4x6 and 30" deep.





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