When your garden pond freezes....what do YOU do?

[Dave7]

Question directed at those with underwater pumps and pressure filters.
If you have eg a waterfall and the pond freezes then it will effectively empty the pond.
If you switch the pump off then the water in the filter could freeze and crack the case.
Whats your solution.
Last night i switched off and hoped for the best.

 

[MikeG]

Where's the filter? If it is submerged in the water below the ice, it won't freeze.

 

[Beebo]

Dig out the manual and see what they recommend. They will have designed some sort of protection in.

 

[pawl]

Get my skates out .

 

[roadrash]

Get my skates out .

but be honest you cant exactly call yours a pond..

 

[welsh dragon]

You shouldn't leave them in place during the winter. Before the winter comes, turn the pump off. Allow the water to run out of the pump and the filter. Put the pump indoors if you can. You can leave the filter in place. Fish tend to dig themselves into the mud in the bottom of the pond and don't move around too much, they don't eat either so there is no need to filter the water at all during the winter months.

 

[classic33]

A couple of tennis balls on the pond, should stop it freezing over.

 

[lazybloke]

The pond today

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Worry about all the frogs in it.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

The pond today
View attachment 397694

Those Surrey Hill Bears sure look cute.

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

Worry about all the frogs in it.

The spawn is all frozen in mine. Will the frogs return to replace it?

 

[byegad]

I get the head gardener to rescue the pair of gondolas. If you don't they won't breed this year.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

The spawn is all frozen in mine. Will the frogs return to replace it?

No idea - sorry.

We have 3-400 frogs in our pond every year (rough estimate last time we tried to count the noisy buggers). Despite how many we have I've never bothered to find out much about them.

 

[welsh dragon]

The spawn is all frozen in mine. Will the frogs return to replace it?

No. Once they have spawned that's it until next year.

 

[slowmotion]

Antifreeze.