Pond Heating Question

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EChambers89

EChambers89

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Aug 17, 2015
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I will be buulding a small pond soon, about 550 gallons. I plan on keeping a couple of turtles and a few large fish in it. How hard would it be to keep the water at a decent temperature during the winter? Can u use a few large aquarium heaters and a de-icer? I live in southern Kentucky and the winters here vary a bit, some days can be in the 20s or 30s, and some days down in the single digits. Would 4 or 5 of the 450 watt version of this work? http://www.petmountain.com/product/...p-digital-heater-with-temperature-sensor.html
 
I take it you're talking about an outside pond? If so.. it'll be super expensive. You'll notice that most pond "heaters" are actually just deicers... will keep it from freezing over. So just a few degrees difference usually. If you go native and the water goes several feet below the permafrost level you won't need to heat it at all. The turtles would need a layer of mud to hibernate in though.

If you're trying to heat it so the turtles stay active, what will you do for the air? They'll freeze as soon as the crawl out of the water as most turtles eventually do.

I use a true pond heater but indoors and its still expensive when trying to maintain a 10+ degree differential. Its about $50-60 a month to heat in coldest months... my tank is completely below ground, has at least 6inches of insulation all around except windows.
 
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Well my plan is to have it in ground, with some sort of semi natural looking hut over it to keep snow off it and hopefully insulate it a little bit. As for the air temp, i was goin to add a few heat lamps, for the basking area, but now I'm thinking a couple more to try to keep the air temperature warm. Also, i plan on doimg a "dry run" without any turtles or fish just to see how stable the climate would be and how much it will run up my power bill.
 
You'll be paying out the kaazoo to heat that water... if it was me, i would keep native fish and either move turtles indoors in winter or allow them to hibernate if pond deep enough with mud.

Even with heat lamps, the ambient air would be cold, the turtles would get sick in no time... but if you were willing to pay to heat that water.. then that alone might be enough to heat the air in the shed then too.. but then it would be like a sauna... water would be dripping off everything which could cause other issues.

Doable..but your electric meter would be spinning super fast...
 
Thats for the helpful information. I'm going to rethink the concept for it before i start sinking money into it.
 
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