Year-round Fountains

Your fountain is one of the greatest assets to your pond and community. It provides an attractive display of water and lights year-round while also providing your pond with essential aeration and circulation. As you get further north where temperatures tend to be much lower in the winter season, ponds freeze much faster and the ice gets much thicker. This colder weather can prevent the year-round benefits of running the fountain. Many communities even have to remove their fountains from the water until warmer conditions return.

In theory, if a fountain continues to operate twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, the water around and under the fountain would never freeze because it would be constantly moving. In practice, this can sometimes be just too risky. If the wind blows one direction for an extended period, ice could start to form. A plastic bag, leaves, or debris, can clog the fountain and impair the output enough to let the encroaching ice solidify and damage the motor seals. These possibilities and other rare events can make running the fountain in the winter a possible liability.

There is one solid and tested solution for keeping a fountain running through the bitter months of winter regardless of how cold it gets. Bottom diffused aeration systems make a perfect companion to a fountain. These aeration systems transport air from a land-based compressor to diffuser disks placed at the bottom of a pond. They then produce a conical stream of bubbles vertically approaching the surface. When placed directly under a fountain, this constant stream of air will prevent the water directly around the fountain from freezing all winter. This coupling of aeration systems will keep your beautiful fountain running all year long, and will also provide a dramatic increase in water quality due to the supplemental benefits of bottom diffused aeration. In a sense, “You can have your cake and eat it too!”

By: Greg Blackham, Aquatic Specialist, SOLitude Lake Management