# Waterfall Needed in Wintertime?



## Jerry Barnes (Jan 2, 2008)

Is it necessary to keep moving water, via a waterfall, in the winter in your pond? Seems to be more of a hassle, have usually done it, but seem to have a slight waterfall leak. I do have a small heater(black doughnut type) that keeps a small hole melted in the ice to allow gases to escape. Would appreciate any feedback on this.
Jerry


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## toddalin (Jan 4, 2008)

Unless you have fish, I'd just leave it drained, which is what I do all year.


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## Dale W (Jan 5, 2008)

Jerry, it is not necessary to keep water moving unless you enjoy observing a partially frozen waterfall. I have shut off the pump for my small pond with a stream and falls. However I am keeping the pump running for my larger pond containing koi until I install an air pump with a couple of air stones. Also I need a 1250 watt pond heater when it really gets cold. It is cheaper to run a small air pump than a heater. 

You are correct, it is important to keep a hole open to allow gases to escape. 

Dale


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## Del Tapparo (Jan 4, 2008)

I run my waterfall all winter long. We have fish, so as said above, you need a hole in the ice somewhere. Our waterfall freezes over when it gets below zero, but still keeps a hole open. However, last year, the GFI breaker gave me trouble and it all froze up. What fun trying to thaw things out and getting it running again.


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## Jerry Barnes (Jan 2, 2008)

I've always run the waterfall all winter, have to chip it sometimes, get worried about it. We do have fish in it Koi and goldfish. Froze pretty sold one cold winter when we lost power for 3 days, but when it thawed out they were fine. 

Jerry


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## dieseldude (Apr 21, 2009)

Jerry- I use an inexpensive aquarium pump to keep some turbulence on the surface of my pond during the winter months. This keeps ice from forming on the surface. I use a fishing sinker to weight down the air line a few inches below the surface of the water, and the bubbles take care of the rest. If we get a really nasty cold spell, I plug in my donut stye heater for a day or two. I live in Buffalo, NY and the temperature can stay in the teens or single digits for days at a time. I've used this method for ten years or more and haven't lost any fish yet. Hope this helps. -Kevin.


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## Del Tapparo (Jan 4, 2008)

Well, it seems I lost my pump last night. Luckily we have been having warm weather and nothing froze up. I have a new one ordered, and meanwhile my smaller stream pump is m aking do. New pump will have more GPH at about half the wattage of the old one.


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## Scottychaos (Jan 2, 2008)

I have heard that you should *not* drain an ornamental pond for the winter..because retaining all the weight from the water is a good thing. 

a. If you use one of those "preformed" plastic shells, frost heave could just pop the shell right out of the ground, with no (or very little) water in it. 

b. even with a liner, having a drained pond with the liner exposed could allow frost heave to push things up into the liner from below, 
but worse, with a drained pond the liner is exposed to falling tree branches, small rodents with sharp claws, dogs, cats, etc..making a puncture much more likely.. 
but when there is water in it, the liner is protected from critters, and falling branches would just float, or land on the ice, protecting the liner.. 

I see no benefits to draining a pond for the winter..and several potential problems it could cause. 
its better to leave it filled.. 

Scot


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## work4fil (Jan 4, 2008)

I have a fountain with what I thought was a cheap submersible pump on it. I too thought that if the pump was left on, there would be enough water movement to keep it from freezing. 

I was wrong. First time we hit the low teens, I had a major ice problem. I thought if I added some RV anti-freeze, it would be okay. I wnet to bed, only to wake up to a screaming pump. I was afraid I had fried it. I unplugged it until spring. I refilled the fountain and plugged in the pump expecting the worst. It gushed forth unperturbed. 

Of course, I was not done tormenting it. This summer I had installed a screen in front of the orofice for the pump intake, to try and keep debris from blocking the pump. After a while, I heard a funny gurgling, like a straw at the bottom of a glass of soda pop. Turns out my screen had blinded with debris and the pump was sucking air. The screen was tossed and the fountain bubbled away like nothing ever was wrong. 

If I was going to keep it running all winter, I would invest in a small pond heater. 

Fil


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## rhyman (Apr 19, 2009)

I keep one of my pond pumps running 24/7 throughout the winter to circulate water over the waterfall. Like others have mentioned, the movement of the water helps keep a clear openingat the bottom of the falls if the pond surface freezes over. The opening is needed to let any accumulating gasses escape from the water. These gasses come from the fish (ammonia) and from decaying waste material in the pond (hydrogen sulfide.) Even if you use another method, such as a heater, to keep an opening in the ice, you should still keep circulating the water. This is extremely critical if you use a biological filter. The aerobic bacteria in the filter require that the water circulate through the filter. Without this circulation, the bacteria will die in approximately five hours, negating the effectiveness of the biological filter.


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## Madman (Jan 5, 2008)

Ditto to what Bob Hyman said


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## Spule 4 (Jan 2, 2008)

Dad keeps his waterfall all winter, but sometimes there is a problem or power failure (the pump and filtration system is in the house). 

The fish can live under the ice, in a near state of suspended animation in the cold. My father's have for nearly 15 years. The fun part is when you can walk around on the ice and see them SLOWLY swimming around. But more than a few days of a solid ice cap can prevent an air exchange, and they can die this way as Bob points out.


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## takevin (Apr 25, 2010)

if you have fish, need to have an opening in the pond, plus the pond has to be deep enough for the fish to survive, or add a heater. Using water circulation or one of those floating heaters will work. Otherwise if you dont have fish its not necessary to run water in winter.


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## markperr (Jan 7, 2008)

Living in Michigan, I generally shut off my water during the winter for two reasons.

First, if it gets really cold, the water can freeze to a depth of close to a foot. If this happens, I no longer have a free flow of water into my pump through the skimmer.

Second. I was told many years ago that you shouldn't run a bubbler or circulator during the winter if you have fish as the fish tend to go to the bottom looking for the warmer water trapped in the thermal layer at the bottom. Running the pump or circulator tends to super cool the water and depending on how cold your region gets, could kill the fish. I don't know this to be true, but I don't want to lose a ton of fish in an attempt at seeking imperical evidence.


At the first sign of ice, the system is drained into the lower pond, the pump is brought indoors and a doughnut heater is placed in the pond. In six years, I've only lost two fish over winter and they were both in the same year and they were both albino catfish. My guess is it was because of their voracious appetites and slow metabolism during the cold spells which caused them to die of sepsis.

Oh, BTW, one year I was a little tardy in getting the system shut off and my waterfall and upper pond froze to the point of draining about 200 gallons of water onto the layout. Talk about going into panic mode in a microsecond when I saw that. 


Mark


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## Dick Friedman (Aug 19, 2008)

I leave my pond pumps on year 'round. The pump keeps the water clean and runs the waterfall. I've got fish in the pond, so the water needs to be circulated. But it never freezes here anyway.


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## Jerry Barnes (Jan 2, 2008)

I left mine going all winter, was pretty mild, did get -15 for awhile, I just left it alone and it did fine. Now it's warm and I need to clean the filter. Sigh...


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## SE18 (Feb 21, 2008)

from end of nov to end of march I shut off the pump and bring it inside and drain the aqueduct, as ice would cause the concrete to crack. No fish to worry about. Tadpoles galore, they find their way here.

DaveV


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## jake3404 (Dec 3, 2010)

I shut mine off and pulled the pump. I put a floating heater to keep the water from freezing. I only had one fish in my small pond and he is doing fine.


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## Bob in Kalamazoo (Apr 2, 2009)

I live in SW Michigan and have kept fish in my pond all winter for the past 7 to 11 years. I've gone from just cutting an opening in the ice every few days to running a small pump all winter to running the big pump with water flowing from the upper pond down to the lower one. When I tried to run water between the ponds I've run into a problem with snow and ice accumulating over the stream and finally falling down and blocking the stream so that all the water flowed out onto the layout. I caught it in time to save the fish. Mostly I've just run a small pump in both ponds that keeps a small opening all winter. Seems to work for me. 
Bob


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## jjwtrainman (Mar 11, 2011)

If you look at nature, streams that move water all year long might freeze in some parts, and stay open in others. I guess it has a lot to do with the amount and speed that the water flows. I personally do not keep the pump going all year long because I live in an area with bitter cold temperatures during the winter. So I not only don't run the pond pump, but for most of the winter I also don't run trains. If you have fish, I guess that running the pond pump might help keep more water open and supply the water with more oxygen (In my experience with goldfish keeping in tanks, it seems that flowing, bubbling water from a filter helps the fish survive better than in stagnant water). So I guess you have to ask yourself these questions:

Will I run trains in winter? 
If so would my pond look better with running water? 
Do I live in an area that gets extremely cold like Minnesota, Northern Wisconsin, Maine, or North Dakota? 
Do I think that any pond life would benefit from the extra water movement?

By asking yourself these questions, i'm sure that you can figure out if you want to leave the pump run. I forgot to say earlier, but since this winter has been extremely mild, I left the pump run for all winter (except for January and February).









Anyone else care to add on? 

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## Brandon (Jul 6, 2011)

I'd just add that water can go below 32 degrees when water is flowing and it's below freezing outside. 

Also fish cells can 'expand' (not the real scientific description) once and only once so they can freeze one year in ice but won't survive the second year freezing in ice... Ever see a fish ice cube?  

I personally tent my entire pond and keep water flowing (waterfall is diverted through a pipe so it never gets exposed to outside air or cools the water down too much). My water temp goes from about 45-55 throughout winter including when it's below 0 outside. My pond is also 5' deep and gets warmed by the earth during winter.


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## stevedenver (Jan 6, 2008)

Posted By rhyman on 07 Dec 2010 07:32 AM 
I keep one of my pond pumps running 24/7 throughout the winter to circulate water over the waterfall.  Like others have mentioned, the movement of the water helps keep a clear openingat the bottom of the falls if the pond surface freezes over.  The opening is needed to let any accumulating gasses escape from the water.  These gasses come from the fish (ammonia) and from decaying waste material in the pond (hydrogen sulfide.)   Even if you use another method, such as a heater, to keep an opening in the ice, you should still keep circulating the water.  This is extremely critical if you use a biological filter.  The aerobic bacteria in the filter require that the water circulate through the filter.  Without this circulation, the bacteria will die in approximately five hours, negating the effectiveness of the biological filter.


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## FlagstaffLGB (Jul 15, 2012)

Jerry, looks like everyone covered the "water front"...LOL. We raise Koi and keep our pond filters and running water going 24/7. Of course, I also have solar PV electric...so the price isn't really an issue. Getting rid of the gases under the ice is more important for the fish than the railroad. We live in Flagstaff, AZ (7000 feet), so it dipped to the 20s in the January and February...ice can get to 3-4" thick. The real issue (my opinion) is whether you run your trains year round and what do you have in your pond? Sounds like you have lots of thoughts to work with.


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## Scottychaos (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By rhyman on 07 Dec 2010 07:32 AM 
I keep one of my pond pumps running 24/7 throughout the winter to circulate water over the waterfall. Like others have mentioned, the movement of the water helps keep a clear openingat the bottom of the falls if the pond surface freezes over. The opening is needed to let any accumulating gasses escape from the water. These gasses come from the fish (ammonia) and from decaying waste material in the pond (hydrogen sulfide.) Even if you use another method, such as a heater, to keep an opening in the ice, you should still keep circulating the water. This is extremely critical if you use a biological filter. The aerobic bacteria in the filter require that the water circulate through the filter. Without this circulation, the bacteria will die in approximately five hours, negating the effectiveness of the biological filter.


If you dont keep fish in the pond for the winter, you dont need to keep water circulating for the biofilter..
the bacteria will die back, but they dont die out completely..
as soon as fish are re-introduced in the spring, the bacteria colony will almost instantly rebound to handle the fish waste (ammonia)..
(20 years of experience behind that statement)

I use lava rocks in the "upper" pond as the biofilter..it just stays open and exposed all winter..no problems..
If you have an enclosed "cannister" filter, just take out some of the biofilter media, plunk it in the pond, (leave it in the pond all winter)
then drain and store the filter indoors for the winter..
then in the spring, take the piece of filter media that spent the winter in the pond, place it back in the canister filter, and you are back in business..
you will still have bacteria on that filter media that will quickly re-populate the biofilter..
(again, this is ONLY if you dont keep the fish in the pond for the winter)

Scot


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## TheRoundHouseRnR (Jul 15, 2012)

Besides playing with trains, I run and manage a fish store. Saltwater reef tanks, to pond fish. I also give pond seminars. Koi and Goldfish are from the carp family. They are cold water fish. However, at around 50 degrees, they start to go into a hybernation mode. There metabolism and body slow down to store energy. If you leave your pump running you are forcing the fish to fight water current and waste there energy that is vital to them for the winter, since you stop feeding them. If you leave your pumps running, you are pulling cold water to the bottom, where they are trying to go to get away from the super cold water at the surface. 
There are some exceptions to this. One if you use a skimmer box, they only pull water from the surface. Two , if you bring your pump up to the first 8 inches of the water. 

As far as bacteria, they use the waste from the fish as energy. The fish basically are not making any waste in these cold months. Therefore the bacteria dies off all but completly due to no food source. The cold weather plays the same effect on the bacteria as well. They basically shut down. Dont worry about keeping some bio balls in the pond from your filter to try and save bacteria. There is plenty of bacteria present in the water, on the liner, and on the plants. 

So heres what you do to prepare for winter. Cover your pond with a net in the fall months to keep debre and animals out of the pond. Stick a floating heater in the pond or use a small air pump to keep a hole in the surface BUT REMEMBER, dont let the air stone go below 8 to 10 inches. You dont want to circulate cold water to the bottom. Shut down all pumps. YOUR DONE lol.... 

As far as oxygen goes. Unless you have a heavy heavy bio load. There is no need to worry about an air pump. Remember, your fish are slowing there bodies down. They are using a fraction of oxygen they use in the summer months. Same goes for the bacteria. You need to worry about oxygen in the warmer months. At 75 degrees, water loses its ability to maintain its oxygen levels. In there winter, theres plenty availible. 

I dont see why you want to run your pump and risk your waterfall freezing, leading to your pond draining out. Or why you would want to put your goldfish through the stress they dont need. 
I hear it all the time , well i run my pumps and they dont die. Guess what ,they are goldfish. They are one of the hardiest fish out there and they will put up with the some of the worst pond care takers out there. So dont waste the electricty and save you and your fish the stress. Shut your pumps down. Hope this helps everyone. If you have any pond questions , feel free to message me. 
The Roundhouse RnR


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## aceinspp (Jan 2, 2008)

Being that I do not have fish and my pond is made of fiberglass I remove the pump and drain the water for the winter months. Later RJD


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## Kovacjr (Jan 2, 2008)

My fathers pond (approx 4500gallons) is always shut down the winter. We wait until the leaves fall completly as we use the skimmer to catch most of the leaves. As to the winter shut down the pump and UV lights come out and lines get blown out. The bottom drain also blown out and plugged. We use a bubbler and also a heater. The bubbler gives a bit more oxygen to the pond in the winter as there is no circulation. 

I had a customer call me one spring after he left his pond drained for the winter, he is mostly clay and to pund refilled naturally though under the liner with ground water. Ive seen Fibreglass pools lift while empty in the winter also, Best to keep the water filled is not just for keeping the pond complete.


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## docstoy (May 15, 2009)

When I lived in Minnesota I used a bio filter submerged which had bio balls that needed occasional cleaning. My system here in South Dakota is somewhat different.There are 3 ponds arranged in a descending pattern. The last and largest has the pump which forces the water up to the top of a "mountain" where the weir allows the water to cascade down a rock filled creek way to the first pond. This pond drains via a creek way to pond #2 which drains via a creek way to the final pond and the cycle starts over. All the creek ways are filled with golf ball to baseball sized river rock. The water depth across the rock filled streams is about 2-3" deep. There is a natural stream just below my property (French Creek) which has a weeds growing on the bottom which is similar to Anacharis. I pull this out and clump it together and lay it on the bottom on the rocks with additional stones to hold it in place. It roots into the bottom rocks and thrives. The water passing over it is naturally filtered and the excess Nitrogen is leached out. The result is some ropy algae but nearly crystal clear water quality, no cleaning needed. 
I turn off the pump and remove it from the third pond, but leave water in all the ponds through the winter, then drain and flush the system in the spring.


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## jake3404 (Dec 3, 2010)

I also pull my pump out in the winter. I clean out my filter as well, but I do leave the water in the pond.


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