I'm still trying to figure out why I've had good luck with my winter setup. I've got a half acre pond which is 8 feet deep max. I have a set of four 8 inch AES airstones at the bottom of the deepest hole. I run 5 cfm through this for two 4 hours shifts per day (total 8 hours per day). I've been doing this for 5 years now. Never lost a fish. I routinely have slush and snow on pond. My ice will get 16 inches thick or more with a foot of snow on top. We've had temps ranging from 25 to 35 F for the last 10 days and I have about a 20 foot diameter open spot in pond. When we have sustained temps below zero the aerator only keeps an opening less than one foot diameter. I've had the same problem with slush this year. In the past I've tried pumping water on top of the ice with a 2" trash pump in attempt to allow skating. I drill a hole at a high spot in the ice and take water from underneath. From experience I can tell you this doesn't work too well for making an ice rink. I have pumped as much as 2 inches of water on top of my ice. More than enough to wet all the slush but the problem is that the slush floats and thus never lets the water freeze smooth on the top for skating. It does however work well to make a smooth rink once the slush has finally frozen and you simply want to resurface the ice. It also works well to make more translucent ice if you can't get on the pond to plow although I've never done it for that reason. When I hear all this talk about being afraid to run an aerator for more than 30 minutes a day or only once a week I can't figure out how my system has worked out. I will say that my pond is an odd shape in that I have 3 roughly round sections all connected by narrower spots. My aerator is in the center section. Perhaps this is what saves my fish? If the aerator is supercooling one section of pond the fish might be surviving in the other sections. I think this winter is shaping up to be the ulitmate test for my pond. I have had thick snow on it for a month now and we haven't had a sunny day in 3 weeks. I do have a 20 foot opening which might save things again, I hope. Each winter I pray that this won't be my turn for a crash.

Gotta get back to fishin!