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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
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Hi Mike, this is my first post. I have a deeper pond but here is the technique I use in the winter. I use a small 700 gallon/hour pump and keep the output hose only about an inch from the water surface. Close to it I keep my pond de-icer. Or at least I used to before my de-icer stopped working. It kept my entire pond (3000 gallons) from freezing. When the de-icer quit this year I just ran the pump. I got ice- but a pretty good size hole thru it. I really liked the idea of keeping the fish in the garage though. Sounds like the best idea. My biggest concern about running a pump strong enough to keep your pond from freezing is that there may be to much current- which might stress your fish.