"Lydia" wrote in message
...

"George" wrote in message
...
It depends on the zone in which you live, the pond size, and the
wattage
of the de-icer. The one advertized at the link you provided as only
100
watts, which won't do much good for most average sized ponds. I used
the
one at the link below last winter, and it worked fine. Although the
ad
says it is for 50-600 gallon ponds, my pond is 1400 gallons. This one
is
1,250 watts, which is over ten times more wattage than the one you are
interested in:


http://www.improvementscatalog.com/p... pt%5Fid=12130

There are others available as well:

http://www.macarthurwatergardens.com...rs/deicers.htm

http://www.pondsolutions.com/pond-heaters.htm


Thanks all for the replies and the links. My pond is about 400 gallons
so
not too big and I'm in zone 7. We had ice over the pond last year for
about
a month, but didn't have anything in it yet so I didn't need anything.
Now
we have one goldfish that *was* a little inch long, $.07 feeder fish
from
the pet store. It's about 5 inches long now and while my original
intent
was to let everything go natural and if he makes it great, if not I
won't
get anymore fish, I do feel sorry for the thing. So while it'll be
spending
the winter in the pond, I'd at least like to give it a chance to breathe
.

Lydia


lydia, I'm in DE, zone 7 also. We just use an aquarium air pump and
weight the end down with a fishing weight and blow air thru it all winter.
We have friends who have a marina, and I figured if an air bubler system
could protect those expensive boats, it would probably work here too.
Then I found out that's one of the ways everyone did it.

nanzi