Winterizing Your Pond
It’s getting colder. We’ve already had a few morning frosts. That means putting the garden pond to bed for winter. Properly winterizing your pond will keep it in great shape and ready in the spring for another season of enjoyment.
Here are some tips to help you prepare your water garden for the changes in weather from the seasonably cool temperature of fall to the bitter freezing weather of winter.
Maybe the first thing to start thinking about are the Fish
1. By now you have already noticed the fish are less active, a telltale sign that less food is required. The first step is to putting the fish on a diet. Give fish a wheat germ-based food when water temperature decreases to 60° F. Once the water temperature goes down to 55 degrees F or 12 C, quit feeding them altogether. At that temperature the fish will want to begin resting at the bottom of the pond.
2. If you have a lot of fish in the pond and the surface is allowed to freeze solid, the oxygen supply will be depleted and the fish may suffocate. The solution is to leave one area of the pond ice free. An electric pond de-icer will do the trick nicely. A thermostat controls the operation of the de-icer turning it on only when necessary. If you are concerned about hydro consumption, plug the de-icer in only once a week.
3. Never use a hammer to punch a hole in the ice, because the fish won’t appreciate the shock.
Now for the Plants
1. Tropical plants like “Tropical lilies” should be removed from the water and brought indoors and placed in a big bucket. Just discard the water hyacinth and water lettuce because it won’t be worth the effort to keep them.
2. If your pond water is 18 – 24 inches deep or deeper, hardy water lilies and bog plants can be left in the pond throughout winter and will likely survive fine. Give your plants a trim, removing dying or dead leaves and divide or repot the plants you’ll be over-wintering. Fall is the perfect time to split, divide and share lily tubers.
Simply take the entire tuber out of the container and use a sharp spade to cut it into several smaller pieces.
3. Hardy bog plants, such as cattail, sweet flag, bulrush, iris, rushes, buttercup, and horsetail, are able to survive freezing solid in shallow water. Leave the leaf stalks on to permit air to be able to circulate to roots.
Let’s look at the Water next
1. If water looks murky it is a good idea to replace about half of the water. Some people like to change some of the water in the fall. Personally I like to change it in the spring but changing about 50% of the water is a good idea.
2. Before you change the water you should check to see if there is excess sludge or slime on the bottom, if so it is a good idea to vacuum the pond before winter. Use a pond vacuum cleaner, usually available for rent. This is caused from decaying leaves and plant life. You could also try removing it by using a skimmer or old fish net. Don’t remove it all though as some pond dwelling creatures burrow in it to hibernate.
3. When leaves falling into the pond is a problem, consider suspending netting just above the water surface to catch falling leaves. It is much easier to gather leaves before they land in water than trying to remove the resulting gooey slime from the bottom of the pond. You could also lay pieces of lumber across the pond and then lay plywood or an old carpet or tarp over the pond. This will help keep the pond clean and if you cover the tarp with straw or leaves, you might keep the pond nearly frost free.
Finally you need to take care of the Pump
1. As the temperature drops, microbial activity also decreases, thus reducing the effectiveness of your filter. So check your filter, clean it, and put it away for the winter. Replace or refresh filtration materials in the spring before you start using it again.
2. Once the weather becomes consistently cold and ice begins to form on the water’s surface, turn off all pumps. If the pump is located deep in the pond and there is no danger of the pump freezing, it is safe to leave it in the bottom of the pond.
3. Experts say that you shouldn’t leave the pump running all winter long because the pump will move warmer water from the bottom of the pond up to the cold water nearer the surface but I have used my pump to boil the surface of the water and keep the pond from completely freezing over for a number of years now and never lost a fish. If you choose to let the pump run all winter in northerly zones, you will probably need to add water throughout winter to maintain the pond’s water level. In warmer climates, pumps and aerators must run year-round. If water temperature will fall below 40° F and your pond has fish, try elevating the pump a foot or so from the bottom. This will prevent the pump from clogging with leaves and debris and allow the fish to hibernate at the bottom where the water is warmer.
4. If you’re closing the pond completely for the winter, remove the pump and store it where it won’t freeze. If you have fish you will have to transfer them to an aquarium.
5. For your own comfort, I would recommend you tackle these tasks before water temperature get too cold.
Have fun winterizing your pond, just think spring when you will be enjoying it again for another summer.
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