As the colder climate comes upon us, your aquatic environments can freeze over, turning your ponds and lakes into a potentially dangerous habitat. Sometimes it can be difficult to de-ice the frozen water even with a high powered deicer or aerator when the conditions are intense.

Remember, lake de-icers are not intended to defrost the whole lake's surface or warm the liquid. Their main role is just to keep an opening in the ice to enable gas kept inside to disperse. All things considered, if the lake has only been completely solidified over for a day, your fish should fare well. Otherwise, in the event that it has been more than a couple of days or weeks, your aquatic environment could be in danger from the lack of oxygen.

What Is There To Do?

First of all, we can start with the basics. What you do NOT want to do is to break or crush the ice on your own. The trauma from the pounding can threaten the ability for your fish to flourish. Consider tapping on the glass of a small fish tank, multiplied by 10. You can understand how painful that can be.

Rather, the best way to go about it is to melt the frozen water. You can do this by pouring hot water over the ice. The goal would be to get enough onto the ice to open a hole and keep it open for the fish to receive oxygen. You can try pouring hot water several times until there is a sizable hole that is opened. Make sure to check back every so often in the winter months to ensure that the hole is open. If it isn't, try the process again to open another hole.

As the winter gets colder, it may be wise to use de-icer to save time and energy. If you do not have one, it is relatively easy to use. All you have to is position the tool, like the KM  3400D, onto the frozen water and turn it on. It will gather heat and disperse into the ice to start the melting process. Provided the temperatures are not too severe, it should get the job done. To get the deicing done more efficiently, you can add the de-icer with an aeration system. This will allow the water to turn in a way that allows for oxygen to enter and cycle into the pond. It will also keep new ice from forming!