"George" wrote in message
news:MmQhe.80298$r53.16454@attbi_s21...

"Gill Passman" gillspamattaylorpassmanspam.co.uk wrote in message
.. .

"~Roy~" wrote in message
...


DUH!


On Sun, 15 May 2005 15:34:51 -0500, "Reel McKoi" of
mumbled something to the effect of:


===If it deep freezes where you live you would need some kind of
heater
to keep
===an area unfrozen - or dig below the frost line. As you know the
fish will
===not survive being frozen solid.

Give the folks a break. I am sure they are well aware most fish would
not take kindly to being encased in a block of ice...........And you
did not answer the question either.

YOu can get my with most any depth, but deeper is better in the colder
climes, as you can take advantage of warmer ground temps and if you
install a stock tank heater you can get my with even shallower depths.
Don't take it for granted if the frost level is only 2 feet your safe
at 3 feet......odds are it will bite you one day. A lot of folks have
kept fish in the cold climes at depths of 3 feet or less with the use
of a heater in the pond, or with a shelter over the pond with a bit of
heat inside.......Personally I would make it as deep as I could, and
if it turns out its not quite deep enough add a heat source, or move
fish indoors during winter season as a lot also do.




==============================================
Put some color in your cheeks...garden naked!

~~~~ }((((o ~~~~~~ }{{{{o ~~~~~~~ }(((((o

Moving the fish indoors is not an option - we are already over-run with
tropical tanks - 6 at the last count and more planned he, he....a heater
is
a good option and one I have already thought of....

Our winters vary....this year was very mild down here but not in the
rest of
the UK where there was a big freeze. When I had a pond before I saw a
good
2-3 inches of ice - used a football to provide air.

Maybe if I dig down an extra couple of feet where I can without going
into
the soakaway this might provide additional sanctuary for the fish - and
have
the bulk of it 2-3 feet with a heater - what do you think?

Thanks
Gill


You can contact your local university (a geology department) and find out
how
deep the frostline is (the depth at which the soil will freeze over the
winter)
in your area, then you should dig at least 5-6 inches to a foot below
(deeper is
even better) to make sure that your pond will not freeze solid during a
hard
winter. The frostline here is at 22 inches, so the deepest part of my
pond
27"deep (but it is also 18 inches aboveground - surrounded and structural
held
by 6 inch x 6 inch timbers, so the total depth is 45 inches). I also use
an
aerator in the winter and keep my waterfall going as long as possible.
When the
water gets around 40 F, I keep the aewrator going, turn off the waterfall,
and I
use start to use a pond deicer, which works very well in keeping the worst
of
the ice off the surface of the pond. If you decide on raising Koi (they
get
large, but are a joy to raise), the aerator will be very important in the
winter, especially if you turn off any circulation you may have. Koi get
much
larger than goldfish, and have a higher oxygen demand. Also, if you raise
Koi,
you really should have a filtration system. It doesn't have to be
expensive, it
just has to work, and preferably be easy to maintain. I hope this helps,
and
feel free to come back and ask more questions (and do ignore the trolls).
Good
luck.



Thanks George,
I will speak to the local Uni - my Mother works there...and btw it was this
ng that taught me about killfiles - lol - have been monitoring for 3 months
plus - learnt more than I ever wanted to about things I never wanted to
think about....IMO the more "pond related" questions we all ask the better
even if from beginners....lets flood it with fish questions.....but that is
another topic....

I'm looking into filtration systems....at the moment I quite fancy the idea
of including the filtration in an upper level which will eventually become a
waterfall type of thing into the main pond....this will almost certainly
need to be custom I think....on the majority of my large tropical tanks I
have external filters with a variety of media which work very well and
certainly external filtration is an option...but my thought is maybe I feed
through this on the upper level, filter it there and then cascade the water
down is an alternative.....now obviously the cascade will be central so on
the other side I'm looking at heavily planting

Gill