Winterizing Your Pond

To ensure that your fish and plants survive the winter healthy and ready for the following year we recommend the following steps.

If your pond is located near or under trees, placing netting across the pond surface will help prevent leaves and debris from falling into your pond. This should be done in early fall when the leaves begin to drop from the trees.

Trim and remove all dead plant material from containers and from the bottom of the pond because this material will decay and produce gasses in the water, which are harmful to aquatic life. Water hyacinths, lettuce and other non-hardy floating plants can be removed from the pond in the fall when they start to brown-out. Place hardy plants on the pond bottom for the winter months. Follow tag instructions for tropical plants.

Remove most of the sludge from the bottom of the pond either with a pond vacuum or silt net. A thin layer of sludge left at the bottom of the pond gives the frogs a place to hibernate over the winter.

Check your salt level. Salt test kits are relatively inexpensive. We recommend using Pond Salt to raise the salt level to .3% over winter and early spring. This will protect your fish when they are in a weakened and more suseptable state due to the colder temperatures. A higher salt level kills most microscopic parasites, improves gill function and helps keep the fish healthy as they enter the next season. This higher salt level will not harm plants in their dormancy. Maintain the .3% concentration until mid May, then make water changes to reduce to .1% and add water hyacinths and oxygenators. An added benefit to adding pond salt is most algae will be killed at this concentration at a time when algae still grows but other aquatic plants are dormant.

We recommend placing a floating, thermostatically controlled Pond De-Icer in your pond for the winter months. This will keep all or some of your pond from freezing over allowing any harmful gasses to escape.

Your pump and filter can run all winter long; however, watch for large ice accumulations of ice which may lower the water level in your pond. Raising the pump off the bottom of the pond allows some of the warmest water to remain where it is most needed, and prevents debris from being stirred up. There should not be a need to clean the filter during the winter. A good cleaning in late fall should be sufficient. If your filter media is worn out, replacement filters can be put in place to ensure proper filtration throughout the season.

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