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My husband said he went outside last night and the pump was making a weird noise, like it wasn't getting enough water. He couldn't seen anything in the dark, so he just shut it off. I went out this a.m. and discovered the problem -- a water hyacinth that had somehow gotten sucked into the skimmer box. But now the pump's been off for about 12 hours.

Should I just leave it off for the winter? We live in NJ and the water temperature has pretty consistently been below 50 degrees now for a couple of weeks, so I haven't been feeding the fish, although they're still somewhat active. Pond is 500 gallons, and it has six comet goldfish in it.

I don't have much experience yet (this will be my pond's first winter), and those who have, PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I'M WRONG, but from what I have read and heard, the "good" bacteria living in your pond and pond filter will die at around 50 degrees, so the bacteria in the filter wouldn't do much of a job of converting waste anyway. BUT, I think the mechanical filtration alone (along with chemical, if you have carbon in your filter) would be a good thing to continue for as long as you can safely run the pump (until the pond freezes?)

Thanks, that's helpful. I did turn the pump back on, to no apparent ill effects. However, I did find a frog in the filter box -- huddled on the top of the filter screen so he wouldn't be in the 45-degree water -- and I rescued him!

GOod job those little guys get everywhere i went to the national air and space muesam and i found a frog on the side walk. That is true about your bacteria ive heard to that it dies at about 50F.

fish1

You don't need to run your filter until the water temp warms up to the 50's. Using a pump in winter makes the fish use more energy to move around in the current and adds stress to them.

Don't run the pump just to keep it from icing over. You should use a pond deicer to keep a hole in the ice so gases can escape from the pond.

Also before it freeze's over remove any leaves etc. from the bottom.