Pond Heater

12 years ago

Hello,

Living in Minneapolis, our evening hours often tend to be cool, even when the temps reach 90 degrees during the day. We are finding that the fish in our pond are having trouble surviving the cool nights. (We use feeder gold fish, which tend to be fairly hardy.)

I'm thinking of using a pond heater during the cool nights; a device that can be taken out during the day.

Our pond is fairly small, about 200-250 gallons. Can anyone recommend a reliable, hopefully not-too-expensive pond heater that would meet my needs?

Also, would the heater have to be on all the time to do the job? I'm assuming heating that much water would take some time, so expecting it to work just overnight might be impractical.

Thanks,

Bill

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Comments (4)

fredinva
12 years ago
I doubt you need a pond heater for cooler night temps during the summer.
First get a pond thermometer. I doubt your pond temp will drop more than 3 to 5 degrees during the night!!!

fred
bsquared18
Original Author
12 years ago
I have a thermometer and did check the temp, and you are right. This morning the water temp is 66 degrees. Yesterday afternoon it was about 70 degrees. Both temps are below the green zone on the thermometer, however. The fish are used to being in a heated aquarium where the temp is in the middle of the green zone, 75 degrees.

No question the fish are in shock. Moved them back into the indoor aquarium for the time being. They are doing much better there.

Still would like answers anyone has to my original questions.

Thanks,
Bill
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rsingley
12 years ago
Perhaps the smallish size of the pond is allowing the water temp to fluctuate too much each day and causing stress. I think a 4 or 5 degree swing in 12 hours is probably too much. My suggestions would be to increase the volume of water, shade the water to prevent it from heating up in the sun, or provide mechanical temperature control in the form of a heater or chiller(the least attractive solution IMO).

Hope it works out for you.
nkm56
12 years ago
Check ammonia levels, just to be sure there isn't some other issue rather than temperature. Also, is the pond in full sun? It could be that a shade of some kind would help.