QA - Maybe you could base your run times off of water temps?? Not sure what all the experts would think about that. Run the pump as much as you could while staying above a pre decided minimum temp. When water starts to approach the min temp shut the pump off and you should have an approximation of max run time. Not sure how you could go wrong with that??
I can see your train of thought and I like it. I wonder what a safe Temp Minimum would be?
Surface water temps the other day was at 36 degrees...that sounds pretty cold to me. I walked out on the dock and did some bouncing to see if the ice would give and it caused some waters to push up at the shoreline where the ice had thawed which pushed some minnows up onto the ice (they managed to wiggle back into the water). This tells me that at least the forage is content with 36 degrees.
