Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help Melt the ice with salt.

Hello.

I have a small pond about 50x50 feet and 10feet deep with minnows, but this pond is far from my instalations, to prevent this pond from freezing completely I keep an open hole with salt.

Once a week I always put salt at the same place.

Is it risky that I put too much salt, I put about half a pound of salt a week.

A+

Can't tell without a soil and water analysis. What are your natural chloride levels.

I think you should be fine. If your 50x50x10 foot deep pond were a cube, the volume would contain 250,000 cubic feet, or just over 187,000 gallons of water.

The salinity of fish blood is just over .8%. It takes 6.4 pounds per 100 gallons of salt to get to .8% salinity in water. That would be nearly 12,000 pounds of table or feed mixing salt.

I presume your pond is sloped with a max depth of 10 feet with an average depth of 3 feet. That would leave you a water volume of only 7500 gallons and it would only take 480 pounds of table or mixing salt to reach a .8% salinity concentration.

The mentioned concentrations and amount of salt presume you have zero calcium levels to start with.

You are probably okay, at least for now, but salt concentrations can accumulate over time. As ewest said, without knowing what your calcium and chloride levels actually are, it's impossible to say how much salt would become lethal.

Hello.

Thank you for your answers,I dont know for the chloride levels, I have not analised the water yet.

From December to mid-March, I will put around 7 pounds of salt.

A+

Rex:

It is always nice when someone does the math!