Brad’s Take

Cross-posted from the chat board.

I watched my neighbor and his dad a couple days ago. They were busy breaking up and throwing all the ice off their water tank.

Here in North Central Oklahoma, we seldom get long, really cold stretches. As long as the temps stay about, say zero most of the time, with few consecutive days much below, I get along without a tank heater. Have for eight years now, since I moved here.

But I just chop a 6-8 inch roundish hole in one side of my (6′x2′x2′ round-ended) tank, and either push the ice back on top of the rest of the ice, or down under in the water. This way the ice acts as insulation, slowing turning the rest of the water into ice. I open the hole twice a day, when I feed.

Any time I run water, ice melts. Plus, we seldom get more than a couple weeks between freezing – and the ice starts melting back into tank water. The four-foots get by OK, keep weight on, spirits up. And the gold fish in the tank (help keep down algae) get through the winter OK, too. (I lose goldfish mostly when I run the tank over when filling – the new water flushes away too much of the existing water, too much change to quick for them.) I only have one fish four years now, and one from two years ago.

A hammer works fair for hole-chopping, a 24″ wrecking bar has been good for the last two winters – it hangs right on the fence by the tank.

That looked like a thankless job, watching them haul that ice out of that tank.