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Old 26-04-2005, 02:48 PM
brewerg brewerg is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Apr 2005
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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





Quote:
Originally Posted by TheStealth
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