Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations What do I do?... Confused again!!!

Winter has been brutal and owning this pond is bitter sweet...Not sure if I am doing things right or not...It is driving my CRAZY!!!

I shallowed up my diffusers and only ran them when I had snow cover and NOT safe ice...Since I have had safe ice I have been scooping the center of the pond hoping to get a place to ice skate for my family...

As of right now the pond is covered with snow except where I scooped over the weekend to clear the 5+ inches of new snow...The ice is 10" of clear ice except for the stress cracks and some fuzz around the edge from snow melt...

Now I guess my biggest fears are O2 levels with no open water...The pond is pretty much weedless except for algae and God knows I have plenty of that..

Here is a picture that shows the area of open ice...Is this enough and will the algae produce enough O2 to keep DO level up?.. I have read and read and read on for some reason the worst case scenarios are the ones that seem to be popping up and sticking in my head.. I can bores some holes above my wind driven diffuser and plug it back in, but my fear there is making the ice unsafe to be on...

What does a guy do?...

How far is your diffuser away from the skating area.
I know we are in different climates but I take my ice auger and start drilling holes and walking towards the diffuser and drill holes to check the ice. With my electric aeration always running the ice is nearly just as thick 30 feet from open water. Might want to plug it in and just check the ice thickness one in a while. The area you clean off will also make a lot of ice since there is no insulation.

If you have a winter bloom going you should have some do2 from your open ice. I hope you hear from some experts on this one.

The diffuser is I would guess 30-35 feet from it, can check that tonight when I get home...When it was last running it was only keeping open an area about 15 to 20 feet..

If you're really concerned i would keep one shallow diffuser running 24/7 well away from the skating area.

Clear ice should allow enough light in to keep algae and plants from dying.

The ice looks clear and not with a cloudy ice layer on top all this should allow light to enter the water and the phytoplankton to make dissolved oxygen. What approximate percent of the pond's ice surface area has been shoveled and snow removed revealing the clear ice?

I would say I have a good 25-30% of it cleared...Needless to say that is a lot of shoveling...

They are calling for more snow tonight (1-3") and no above freezing temps for the next two weeks...It got up to probably 35°F today...

The center section you see in the picture has not had snow one it during any of the thaws we had..I had already scooped it before the last warm up/rain we had...The outer areas that are snow covered are not as clear because they had snow that was rained on before it froze again...

I know you clear snow for ice skating but I gave up on that for the fishes sake a few years ago because of the work, and because one year we had heavy snow on early thin ice, and I could not get back on it with the snow blower. I've depended on the diffusers ever since.

My trout pond is mostly snow covered with a small area near shore open from a diffuser. The trout are fine as i dropped a jig into a hole a good distance from the diffuser and it was hit instantly. I have a taxidermist that needed one in the 16 inch range.

For relatively small ponds Cecil probably has the best idea of using diffusers to reduce chances of winter kill. Here in NW Ohio we are on Jan 20 just 2" from having the most inches of snow for any January on record. We will easily beat the record snow fall for any January including that of our infamous "blizzard" of 1978. I am tired of scooping, pushing and shoveling snow. It seems like it snows the next day after I make an area of the ice snow free. I scooped today and it is supposed to snow tomorrow which is why I started up my diffuser. I want to check how well the oxygenated water gets mixed away from the diffuser and how deep of water DO gets distributed. My diffuser is not real shallow 3'-5' as suggested by the majority here on PBoss forum.

Okay, thinking I am going to fire up the diffuser for a couple of days because we are supposed to be MAKING ICE!!!

Do I need to bore some holes in it above the diffuser to keep the air from getting trapped?..I have rip rap around the outer edge of the pond so a tight seal is probably not a problem...I just don't want to get air pockets under to good ice and cause any problems or unsafe conditions for skating..

If it were me, I would put a hole as close to directly above the diffuser as you can. I would think you do not want air to accidentally start traveling all the way across the pond and try to open a hole on the other side where it escapes. Not saying it is going to do that, but if it did, it would be less than ideal.

The hole above the diffuser ought to also give the diffuser a head start on doing its job.

Just my opinion, but really have no experience with ice and a diffuser so take it for what it is worth. Just seems the logical thing to do. Others probably have actual experience.

Don't have to know anything to have an opinion. I know lots of people like that

Making a hole right above the diffuser will hasten the process.

When I started my aerator with 6" of ice over the diffuser I drilled 6 holes above and around the diffuser boil because I did not know exactly where the diffuser was located.

Best picture showing thickness and clarity of the ice...Over 10"s thick on most of this part of pond...



Only took me 4 hole to hit the boil...

The joys of wind powered aeration...Wind laid and switched to out of the south...Hopefully it picks up or switches as the day goes on...

Thanks for posting that! I'll have to go to a clients property and take a picture. His pond has both windmill and electric air pumps for the diffusers in the pond. Both styles of pumps have diffusers set in the same depth for summer and another set set in the same depth for winter. There is a big difference in the size of the open hole during the winter!

Went home on my lunch and drilled a hole above my electric powered diffuser and fired it up... The holes over the windmill powered have already frozen solid again and where making more hard solid ice, so I opened them up again...

Also drilled a couple of holes and dropped a jig with no results...Wish I had a GoPro I could put on a stick and send for a dive... Oh the stress of owning a POND!!!

Hey, nobody said that having your own pond was easy!

I'll tell you what I'm doing, right or wrong.....I fire up the aeration and run my shallow water diffusers every 3-4 days for around 24 hours, to open an area about 1/4-1/3 total surface area. Then I shut back down and let it refreeze super clear. When the clear area gets covered in more snow, I repeat the process.

I would let it run continuous, but I like to ice fish the deeper areas, plus, the arctic temps make me nervous when I see the steam rolling off the open water.....I don't want to cool the pond down, just need to let some sunlight down there.

Outdoorlivin247,

My fish are sold as part of my living so I can't afford to lose fish. I crank up a diffuser in 3 to 4 feet of water near the bank on my ponds and forget about it. I run them 24/7. Considering what you have to lose is not worth the expense to run it 24/7? As long as you stay well away from it and test your ice you should be fine as far as ice fishing and skating.

I usually use a small compressor just for winter to keep the electric bill down as you don't need to move much water to keep the ice open.

Like I said I gave up on removing snow off the ice several years ago due to the work, time, and expense of doing so. And then there will be years you will not be able to get on the ice, but you could have heavy snow cover. Then it's either hope for the best or cut a hole in the ice and install a diffuser after the fact. Did that this year with no problems due to the cold weather getting ahead of me and other priorities.

After 24 total hrs of aerator run time over 3 days, today I had a an open hole 66ft dia for a total of 3419sqft or 11% of my pond's surface area. The largest diffuser that I have is in about 11-12ft of water, thus I get a big open area (1/4hp rotary probably producing 3.5cfm at 12ft). It appeared the water movement influence from the currents was a total of 120ft dia which meant the influence spread was about 30ft beyond the open hole. I shoveled snow within about 30-40 ft of the open hole. Tomorrow I will cut some holes and check the ice thickness at various spots to check the amount of eroded ice due to the under ice currents. I was too cold today after shoveling snow to cut ice holes. I might even try fishing tomorrow.

Bill you're a weeny!

You weenie!

Here's the picture. You can see where the water was open - it's the dark spot with a light coating of snow on it. The size of the holes is deceiving, the one that is open is about twice the size of the one that is frozen. Picture was taken today. Due to the lack of wind yesterday, the hole that was made by the windmill diffuser froze over and didn't even open up today. The hole that is open is approx. 30' to 40' in diameter. The winter diffusers are in about 4' of water.

Hey looks like the ponds are up!

Compared to last year, yes. But, they are down about 4' or more right now.

Bill is not only a weenie but an old weenie. My hands can't take the cold temps like they used to. A couple fingers get numb quickly and were probably frost bit in the early days of ice fishing. No more ice fishing without a shanty anymore for this weenie. If you come ice fishing with me CB1 you can sit outside the shanty in the wind with the hole freezing closed. When you coming over and walking on water?