3 or 4 feet depth is whats recommended for overwintering - deep enough that it wont freeze to the bottom - and then you need the deicer to keep an opening clear so gasses can escape and oxygen get in. They arent really designed for heating an entire body of water, just keeping hole clear in the ice. Youd be better off having a tank in the basement to move the fish and the pump and filter to - I would just get another 200 gallon - or if its cold in the basement (40-50 degrees) you could get by with a smaller size since the fish will get sluggish and not eat or poop much.

Yes do keep some - its so much more rewarding to see your fish grow up into big fish and they do become loved pets. Maybe not quite as interactive as a dog or cat, but still - theyre quite lovable little critters.

BUT FYI - 200 gal is only good for about 5 or 6 goldfish max - with good filtration. 2 doz is way, way too many

Thank you for the info. Sounds like back to the pet store for them, because I don't want to invest in a 200-gallon tank. For one thing, we won't be around to attend to it much of the winter. I've considered the logistics of various options, and nothing except pond wintering or return to the pet store computes.

I do have to disagree about the number of fish in the pond. When they are small feeder fish, as they are now, there is no problem. They are thriving. And it looks like each spring/summer, there will be a new batch of small fries. The 200 gallons I mention for the pond is an estimate based on its dimensions; there may be more capacity.

So, I'll have to take the hit by paying a whopping $3 to $4 each year for a couple dozen new fish.

Bill

Bill, comet goldfish grow to 10 inches long including tail. The 30-50 gals per fish guideline would indeed apply if you were keeping them from year to year and I only mentioned it because you were thinking of doing that. Hope that clarifies.

Yes, I see what you mean. In the past, I've had feeder fish in indoor tanks that grew quite large. On balance, given the size of the pond, it seems to make more sense to have new fish each spring.

Bill

have 2 floating heaters in se mi...only 3 ft deep...

Susan, OP's is only 1 foot deep. Its not your heaters that are keeping ice from forming down to the bottom - its the fact that your pond is 3 feet deep and the earth around it insulates it to some extent and keeps it warm enough to not freeze solid.

I guess you also could have sold the fish, at a price cheaper than the local stores. They are feeder fish after all. Someone's turtle, larger pet fish, or something else would have been happy to eat it, or someone could have taken some off your hands for their aquarium.

In other words, your pond sounds like a great place to breed, care for, and then sell off some feeder fish when the cold season rolls in. So you might lose $4 a year to buy up some to fish stock in the spring, but then hopefully you make $4 or more back at the end of fall when it's time to sell them off.

In my case, I like the feeder fish, but invariably some of them will be found dead throughout the year. If I know it was a recent death (such as last night), then I'll feed it to my turtles while it is recently dead or will freeze it until time to give them a fish treat.

I live in Edmonton Alberta I have a small pond -7'x9' with a max depth of 18" I used a stock tank heater for the first 7 years until it crapped out now I am using a deicer. I keep my spill way and box filter running year round. with the deicer the pond will ice over at about -20c. The -40c temps will cause the ice to build and cover the top except where the water runs into the pond and around the deicer. I am going to say that if you really want to keep the fish a deicer is doable. You just have to be willing to pay the price. I run portable A/C for the house all summer and deicer all winter and don't see a whole lot of difference in power bill. The amount of animals and birds I get, the more exotic plants I can keep and the ease of leaving the fish year round is worth the cost for me

You could try leaving them in your pond - I've heard of stranger things happening than goldfish surviving a frozen pond all winter. Goldfish can be surprisingly hardy. The only concern I would have is your concrete pond - do you generally empty it during the winter? I might be concerned that the concrete would crack if you leave water in the pond. Is the pond above ground or below grade?

(And in case anyone thinks I'm being cruel by suggesting you experiment with letting fish freeze to death - I'm only suggesting that as an alternative to selling them off as feeder fish, where they will meet a certain death!)

imjk,

Thanks for the comments.

Your suggestions about leaving the fish in to see what happens and that it can't be any more cruel than serving them up as food make sense.

Re: "I might be concerned that the concrete would crack ... ."

Actually, the people who installed the pond (the top of which, by the way, is level with the ground) recommended leaving water in so that as it freezes, the pressure is equalized between the frozen water and the surrounding frozen ground. We've had the pond many years, and that method has worked well.

I was going to wait until spring to update this thread, but I'll mention now that a friend who lives nearby has had good luck using a small, floating electric heater and covering her pond with a tarp to hold in the heat. That has worked for her in the past, and she offered to winter my fish (about two dozen small ones) for me. So that's where they are.

Her pond is about the same size as mine; maybe a bit deeper, but not much. So, I'll report back in the spring about the results of this little experiment.

One of my fish was so clever and fast (the wily wascal) that I couldn't catch him. So he (or she) is still in the pond. We'll see in the spring if he has survived.

Bill