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David Epstein: Hi, I am David Epstein welcome to Growing Wisdom and we are here with the buddy Tom Frost we are closing down a pond today. We had netting over that pond to protect that for all the leaves that have been falling and now Tom we are going to take this off right?
Tom Frost: Yes.
David Epstein: So let us get this off, this is one of the steps that is done in early fall.
You put this netting on and that stop all those leaves from going in to the pond and we are going to talk to Tom about what we do in late fall in the early winter to keep this pond so that happy all winter long until we start up back again next spring So, this fish in this particular pond, the pond has a nice waterfall what are you doing to do now until you come back in the spring and start-up again?
Tom Frost: In a New England you have a choice to make it; you have to make it early on whether you not want to try to run your water feature through out the winter. Most of the water features we recommend to our customers to shut down to simply for one ease and peace of mind. You do not have to worry about after the winter with some of these ponds.
This particular pond mall has a skimmer. Skimmer you have to be very conscious with that ice level is because if water somehow does not get to the skimmer you burned out your pump and then your whole pond will freeze over. By shutting it down and putting it into the bed you do not have to be worry about it. You can come back out in April open it back-up and start enjoying it again.
David Epstein: And what about the fish?
Tom Frost: The fish were actually going to go dormant state once the water temperature gets to 50 degrees or below. They do not need anymore their body chemistry shut down and basically just going to find the deepest part of the pond. This happens to be the warmest part of the pond they just going to hang out there all winter.
David Epstein: Why do you have to keep that whole ice?
Tom Frost: What happened is if got a layer of ice across, you have the decomposing leaves, you do have some fish waste and those give up gasses and if the gasses cannot escape they became poisonous to the fish. We are going to take the main pump out that runs the water feature but we are going to install a small pump in the pond. And all its going to do is bubble and hopefully create a hole ice and then you going to get that end of January or early February cold snap which that erosion bubble is going to freeze over.
You going to get a dome of ice there and in that point we are going to recommend our customer have a de-icer on in to float next to that to melt the hole.
David Epstein: Thanks for coming here the growingwisdom.com and seeing how we close down a pond, and another great pond season coming to close come back every week for all of our tip and be sure to come back of course we will be showing you how to open pond again next spring.
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