Vickie, if you think there is a possible chance of the pump ever being frozen then I would suggest that you take it right out for the winter.

Whether you live in Zone 10, 7 or 3 the pump's impeller assembly should be taken apart and cleaned before you store it away.

The sludge/dirt/calcium deposits that accumulate inside the impeller cavity, can set up like concrete and seize the pump up over winter, whether it is in the pond or on a shelf in the garage. A seized up pump will burn out very quickly, when it is powered up the next season.

Take the cover off the impeller housing.
Some pumps have four screws that have to be removed to gain access to the impeller assembly. Some, such as later model Laguna pumps, have a twist off impeller end cap.
Refer to the instructions that came with your particular type of pump, if you are not sure about taking it apart.

After you take the end cover off, pull the impeller out from the pump body carefully, don't twist or bend the shaft, as in some pumps, it is made from a ceramic material and can snap easily.

Once you have it all apart wash out the dirt/sludge from the pump's impeller cavity. I use a bottle brush to do this. Wash the dirt off the impeller blades. An old tooth brush is a great tool for doing this.
Dry and re-assemble the pump.
Your are ready for next season.

There is no need to keep a [mag]netic drive pump in a bucket of water over winter, as some people suggest.
That method of storage was for oil filled pumps, that have seals between the impeller and the pump motor, that if left to dry out, will possibly crack and the oil could leak out from the pump into the pond water.

As far as your skimmer goes. Again if you think there is a chance of the water in it freezing and possibly cracking the housing, empty it, lock it and cover it over to keep the rain [or snow if you get it] out of the skimmer.
Always better to be safe than sorry.
"Horton"

Thanks, Horton. I appreciate all the information. I think the pump I have will be pretty simple to clean up from the sound of it. I was a little doubtful on the skimmer and the filterfall box. You answered all the questions. At first, I was going to run pump all winter, but decided against it. The cost of the pump isn't worth the risk.
Our winters tend to be fairly mild for the most part, but as I've said, sometimes we get a nasty surprise. In the past nine years, I believe, we have had 2-3 serious ice storms, with power out in some places as long as 2-3 weeks. And, with fall weather coming earlier than I can remember, I'm afraid we may have another rare, but hard winter. Keeping fingers crossed. I so want my goldies and koi to survive it. I have cleaned out the pond, changed out some of the water, have net ready to go when leaves start falling with aerator standing by.

Thanks for the information on cleaning the pump. I have two mag drive pumps and wasn't sure about those.

QUESTIONS ABOUT SNOW & ICE COUNTRY...

I've added more gold fish to my pond this year.

My local pond shop recommends removing the big pumps and storing them away and draining the boxes and pipelines.

Last year I just shut things down because I didn't have nearly the fish. Now I have about 15 goldfish and a couple hundred Gambusia (mosquito fish).

The store recommended keeping a small hole open in the ice by adding a smaller submersible pump connected to a fitting near the surface, sorta like a bubbler, to help methane gas to escape. I might do that this year.

Actually though, I'm hoping to keep my pumps in the skimmer this winter and to keep the pond up and running as long as possible. Then turning things on and off intermittently depending on weather. Or is that too problematic.

Will ice buildup in the system cause too much trouble, making it all unpredictable as to how the pipes freeze and become clogged or crack?

Last year I shut everything down when it reached 35 degrees with an impending cold front, but I left the pumps in the skimmer box.

We rarely get more than two inches of ice on our ponds here in NE Kansas, so I thought they were kinda safe. See if this makes sense:

I have an upper and lower pool with a wide but short waterfall between them. Water is feed into the upper pool from a filterfalls box and a small five foot stream beneath it. The setup is about 2000 gal. total.

I was going to try to keep the setup operating thru freezing temperatures until the really cold weather comes (sub-10 degrees). When I hear about a storm or cold spell coming I think I might shut the box and falls down so I don't get any ice damns built up, so water doesn't get mis-directed. We usually get a week of cold, below freezing, then things moderate and hover around freezing for a day or two, then the cycle repeats for a couple of three to four months. We get snow and ice but not too many heavy snows but lots of cold winds. But we're not like the northern states where the snow stays around for long periods. We get more melting and drying, days when there is no snow cover.

Will this work?

Most people around here follow the advice of the local store and pull everything but I have a friend who has a much smaller setup with koi and he keeps it all running (hardly the waterfall volume I have though). We both have deep ends. My pond is 32" deep along the main channel.

I can tell you what I had done last winter, but keep in mind it was my first winter with a pond so it might've just been beginner's luck.

My pond is a 9' - 10' irregular-circle, about 2' deep (at the time) with a 6' or 7' stream fed by a filterfalls (setup kinda similar to yours, but without the upper pool), and probably 700-some gallons with 50+ goldfish and a 9" koi. Pump put out 1500 GPH or there-abouts, and the weir on my filterfalls is about 16" wide. I had heard a lot of conflicting information about shutting things down or keeping it running, so I had decided to see for myself and kept it running for most of the winter.

For the majority of the time I didn't have a problem keeping the pump running . . . the pond would freeze up and there would be ice on the stream, but underneath the water was still flowing and the ice never got heavy enough to affect the water flow into the skimmer - until we had that massive cold snap come through that forced me to shutdown the pump and add a bubbler (the stream froze completely and the water was flowing out on top of the frozen pond - "draining" the available free water and nothing I did could remedy that - adding more water, melting a hole at the bottom of the stream for the water to drain back through, etc). I left it this way throughout the rest of the winter (pump entombed in the frozen skimmer box, filter falls and pipes drained by gravity so most of the water out of the system), and it fared decently well, considering. I'm in Zone 6, in the Cincinnati area and at one point I had close to 6" of ice on my pond, mostly thanks to that cold snap - we had at least a week where the nights were at or below zero not including windchill.

When spring started coming around I melted the ice out of the skimmer box and turned the pump on - nothing came out, so I proceeded to use hot water on the pipe in the skimmer to melt the ice in the pipes and that's all it took to get the water flowing again (2" PVC pipe) - however shortly after that the pump kept tripping the GFCI breaker after running for a minute or two. Some quick field repairs (clean the pump, check the impeller, etc) would work for a while, but I did find out that the electrical cavity on the pump had gotten filled with water, so I believe that having the pump frozen like that either affected the seals or forced water past them and was causing my problems. The fish all survived through the winter, too.

This year I'll also keep it running, but if it gets too cold and I need to turn the pump off, well then I'll pull it out and bring it inside so that I don't have to replace another one. Course this time I've got a mag-drive pump so it would probably fare better than the last one (I don't recall who made the broken pump).

Pondbucket, I use an aquarium air pump with two outlets, with a bubbler stone each. I suspend them from a floating thing so it hangs over the deep part of the pond. It keeps a hole in the ice very nicely (cold end of zone 5). The little air pump sits under a plastic shoe box, on a brick, protected from ice and snow. Our only problem was the ice storm and a day without electricity. I reopened a hole in the ice with kettles of hot water a few times (thank goodness for the woodstove!) until we had electricity back. And that problem can only be fixed with a generator...

:) Mary
*we were so lucky. Part of our town was without electricity for eight days*

Everyone,

Thanks for the information! I may just try numerous smaller pumps to keep air holes open... wondering if I should try to keep an air hole open in both pools?

Even though I use mag drive pumps the electricity savings may be well worth it to shut the bigger ones down.

Does anyone have any information on algae growth and water circulation? I'm wondering, does keeping everything operating help inhibit algae growth?

Last year after I shut everything down, I had HUGE string algae growth during the late winter and early spring.

I was wondering the same thing about circulation and algae. It seems one bad thing about keeping the pump on during winter, is the fact that it would move too much water and keep the pond from having layers of water with different temps. Doesn't having a warmer layer up the odds of the fish surviving? Course, that would probably have a bigger impact, the deeper the water is. Mine is only 2 feet deep. I feel like I am worrying too much about my first winter. Maybe by next year, I will be an old hand at it.

I think I will also add a couple pieces of large diameter PVC pipe in the bottom of the pond to help create a few hiding spots for the fish. I really don't know what else I can do except cross the fingers and hope all goes well.