Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss Yee Haw! Here we go again. Heavy Snow and...

Its dropped to -15 without considering the wind chill. Brrr

Dang storm took 90% of our snow away last night, but polished the ice on the pond nicely for skating. Front went through at 6AM and the temps are dropping. It is supposed to hit -5 tonight with 30MPH winds. I may finally get to skate on the pond without putting a foot through all of the random holes.

It's so cold here chickens are rushing into KFC and begging to use the pressure cooker!



It's so cold here we took everything out of the freezer and huddled inside to keep warm!

And I am supposed to be in Ottawa in a week...

Good luck...

We ended up with 14 inches, give or take. Hard to prove that as the wind just piled it all up. I have huge sections of bare ground all over interspersed with 5-6 foot drifts. We are looking at wind chills of -30 or better next 48 hours. I think I'll stay home.

Cecil, the chicken/KFC thang is hilarious !!!!!
On a more serious note I gotta thank all ya Hosiers for keepin me informed about the harsh reality of a nasty Midwestern winter. I am definitely worried about my pond. I do tend to brag about being in Fl for the winter but my true passion is the puddle up in Indiana. Think I'll have to summon the neighbors to crank up the aerator and get some open water.
Again, thanks to everyone for the constant updates. I do sympathize with all who have to deal with natures backhand.

Bob-O you won't need to have them run the aerator if all this wind has blown snow off the ice.

Biil,

What about potential gases that should be vented? The koi folks and their small ponds are adament about those gases.

I'm just hoping I don't have too much open water. It looks like a steaming boiler out there! Kind of wish I had left the diffuser at 3 feet instead of moving it to 4 or 5 feet.

One other possibility (from a person that knows little about aeration) is to use a different diffuser that makes large bubbles instead of small. Maybe something made out of PVC pipe with small holes.

Here is my thinking.

From all the reading I have done, we want smaller bubbles for water movement. More smaller bubbles equals more surface area means more water movement. Which is, after all, what we are after when we want to get better DO levels.

But for ice opening I wonder if the same small bubbles would not be less efficient. Larger bubbles equals more wave action equals more surface movement (as opposed to vertical water movement).

So for opening an ice hole, would not what we would consider a poor diffuser (large bubbles) be better in the case of winter aeration for the purpose of keeping the ice open????

I do not know if that is true. Just asking the question.

Cecil, I'm trying to follow this closely as I just opened two of my diffusers which will be running 24/7 by tomorrow. The rest of the pond is still snow-covered.

As I now have two opened areas in 4' depths on opposite ends of the pond, I have no steam rolling out of mine like what you're reporting. Are you pulling in warmer water from deeper portions of your pond? I'm just wondering where all the steam is coming from.

I also have my well running right now so I'm getting some steam from that, but I'm guessing that's not difficult when it's -10F out right now!

I shut down the aerator in the HBG pond today. It had been running since yesterday morning, and had opened a large area. I figure the open water will freeze shortly, and be plate glass clear....at least that's my hope.

It was steaming pretty good also.

All this talk about open water, snow cover and aeration makes me think all of my fish are going to be dead in the spring...I have my windmill powered diffuser set at about 3' and have been plugging it in when I have complete snow cover..

It has been unplugged for about 4 days now hoping to get ice thick enough to play on safely with out roping off half the pond.....The wind definitely helped clear the snow..I have about 40% coverage but my ice is far from clear...Between the ups and downs in temp and snow melt it has me worried I need to plug the diffuser back in to get open water...Grrrrrr!!!

7 miles due East of me, Plymouth address. Not a tree on their 10 acres. The wind really whistles and they've had some pretty impressive drifts over the driveway. We put up a snow fence to help manage the drifts. They are about 240' back from the road.

My row of pines really made a difference this time although I still have a boat load of snow in the drive way.

What about the place on the lake?

Still there. My sister and I took it off their hands.

Well, with no snow on the pond, it has frozen deeper than it ever has! It is also so cold, that the upper layer of ice has shrunken, and the entire surface is a spiderweb of cracks. Maybe when I get home I will attempt to measure how thick it is, but I don't think my auger drill bit is long enough. I can see some of the cracks go at least 6" down, maybe more.

For me this means ice-hockey is ON.