My pond is in WNY. The winter here has been pretty brutal. I have not been to my lot in probably 2 months, last time I was there the ponds had open water holes from the aeration. I went and checked yesterday, and the ponds are covered in what I would guess would be about 1ft thick ice and about 24 inches of snow on top of that. The windmill aeration has not been able to keep up with the low temps and snowfall in terms of opening up holes in the ice. Also, we had no January thaw this year.

Long story short, should I be concerned about drilling holes in the ice above the diffusers? I'm wondering how thick the ice is above the stones and whether or not that is a dangerous proposition. Is it required to have open water for the anaerobic gases to escape? If not, how long can the pond be covered in ice to where this will become an issue?

I don't think we're going to have a thaw anytime soon...