i was thinking anout making a good size aquarium or pond for my cichlids. i know its bad to release non native fish in america and thats not my intention i want to build a large pond for my cichlids to live in . i know they will need a heater cause i live in northern ct and winters are very harsh up here. i've done this before when i lived in palm bay florida, me and my dad built a pond for a few oscars and other cichlids that would get too larger for our home aquarium witch turned in to a grow out as time passed. my question is will i be able to do the same thing over here and still keep them alive during the winter?
large cichlid pond
- Thread starter doomiedee
- Start date
Well I am not to informed on this so idk if you could keep them out all winter or not but if i were to guess i would say no ya cant. They r more of a tropical fish. I know with my orandas i have to bring them in and i live in south dakota my koi are hardy enough to survive as long as i keep the water from fully freezing and maybe that might be the case for you to. Build your pond deep enough maybe im sure we will find out from someone cause im curious now to
Ya know it u can find a cheap wood burner and alot of copper pipe you could build you own free pond heater thats what i'm workin on just need pump hooked up and lots of fire wood. For next year anyway....
Palm Bay Florida wouldn't require that much heat, but Waterbury Connecticutt is a whole different ball game.
Maintaining tropical temps through a CT winter would be really expensive. If you heat via electicity you would probably need several thousand watts. According to the calculator below, you would need around 6,000Watts (6KW) heater.
http://www.heatingyourpond.com/submersible-heaters.html
Here's another option for an inline heater: http://www.aquaticeco.com/subcategories/3925/Aqua-Logic-In-Line-Heaters
If you pay the national average of $0.11 per KWhr and the heater cycles on for only 8 hours per day, that's going to cost you around $160 per month just to heat the pond. This is a very rough estimate of what it would cost you to heat it and I think it's actually pretty conservative...it will probably cost you quite a bit more. If you are able to insulate it very well, that might bring the cost down a bit but you would need some serious insulation.
You can search heat exchange systems that work off of your house hot water heater/boiler, or you can look into tankless (Natural Gas) water heaters used for heating koi ponds...the upfront cost of these would be more expensive, but they would likely cost much less to run. Either way, it's a pretty huge financial commitment.
To be honest, I would not even try it. Your winters are too brutal (Average low of 15F in the winter!!!).
Maintaining tropical temps through a CT winter would be really expensive. If you heat via electicity you would probably need several thousand watts. According to the calculator below, you would need around 6,000Watts (6KW) heater.
http://www.heatingyourpond.com/submersible-heaters.html
Here's another option for an inline heater: http://www.aquaticeco.com/subcategories/3925/Aqua-Logic-In-Line-Heaters
If you pay the national average of $0.11 per KWhr and the heater cycles on for only 8 hours per day, that's going to cost you around $160 per month just to heat the pond. This is a very rough estimate of what it would cost you to heat it and I think it's actually pretty conservative...it will probably cost you quite a bit more. If you are able to insulate it very well, that might bring the cost down a bit but you would need some serious insulation.
You can search heat exchange systems that work off of your house hot water heater/boiler, or you can look into tankless (Natural Gas) water heaters used for heating koi ponds...the upfront cost of these would be more expensive, but they would likely cost much less to run. Either way, it's a pretty huge financial commitment.
To be honest, I would not even try it. Your winters are too brutal (Average low of 15F in the winter!!!).
Thats a good point. I only would heat the pond during winter nights cause the temp would drop below 60°. But that was simpler I would just plug in a few 300 watt heaters and spread them out and putting 2 or 3 extra heaters around the circulation pump
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