Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations How to measure bottom temperature

Hi all,

I’m buying a Solar floating pool thermometer to put by my dock to monitor surface temp. I would love to find a solution to monitor temperature at the bottom of the deep area of the pond say 50 ft from dock. Maybe weight and float a wired sensor a foot off of the bottom that I can somehow read from the dock. Any ideas?

If you want an easy cheap way to sample the bottom temperature then buy one of the maple or fruit syrup glass bottles with a handle. Enjoy the syrup! Tie a cord to the handle and add enough lead wheel weights to the bottom to make it sink. Duct tape. Toss the bottle into the pond and let it sink to the bottom and lay there long enough for the water temperature to equilibrate the to bottom temperature - maybe several hours. Pull in the bottle and measure the water temp. Use one of those thin stem probe dial thermometers.

I use indoor/outdoor thermometers to measure water temperature using the "outdoor" probe. The wire from the main unit to the remote temp probes is usually long enough (10 feet or so) to reach the bottom of many ponds when dropped from a boat. With a digital readout, you can watch the water temp stabilize at each depth until it reaches actual temperature there (a few minutes IME).

Do you have a Thermocouple meter? If not get something like this;
Thermocouple sensor
Then get Thermocouple wire (K Type) like this;
Thermocouple wire
Then attach a connecter on one end, like this (male);
Thermocouple connector
Then twist the other end of the wires together, and add a drop of solder (the end that goes in the water).
Tie a sinker onto this end and lower into the murky depths, keep the plug end accessible (at dock), leave it there, and plug into meter whenever you want to see the data.