Heating your pond on a budget.

Heating your pond on a budget.

Hi its Lee from the Japanese Water Gardens, in this video I am going to be discussing heating your pond through winter.

What are the benefits?

How is it done?

Does heating a pond cost a lot?

How you can keep the cost to a minimum.?

Let me answer a few of these questions and one or to others about heating a pond.


There a several reasons why heating a Koi pond is a good idea.

It will protect your fish from extremely low damaging temperatures. I know that technically they may survive such an experience but make no mistake exposing your fish to near freezing conditions is doing them no good whatsoever.

It will protect your pump, uv, filter system and pipework from ice damage. I remember how many customers had to make expensive repairs after the bad december we had in 2010.

Even during a typical british winter the ever changing weather causes fluctuations in pond temperatures that gradually weaken the fish and leave them susceptible to a multitude of problems.


There are several different options open to a pond keeper who chooses to heat there pond.

The main ones being:

A traditional swimming pool gas or oil powered boiler. Very powerful, but can be expensive to buy and install. Also they need to be serviced regularly by a suitably qualified person.

Heat pumps, highly efficient modern appliances. Designed to use the minimum amount of energy possible. However the are expensive to buy, very bulky and can be noisy in operation.


You can even make your own if you know what your doing. A very cheap and simple heating system can be made from 2 or 3 aquarium heaters. Heaters like this are best placed into the filter rather than the pond because they are fragile.

I think for most people the best option is an in line electric heater. This is one of the cheapest to buy and easiest systems to install. They are not particularly energy efficient or powerful but they are compact and reliable.

Most people will tell you you need 1kw of power per 1000 galls or 5000 litres of water. But this very much a generalization. If you do a very good job insulating your pond a 1kw heater will be fine on a much bigger pond.

The reason most people choose not to heat there ponds is the huge cost that can be incurred if you don’t go about it in a sensible way.

At the moment running a one Kilowatt electric heater flat out 24hrs a day for a week costs around £25. A lot of money for most people to find. But it is hard to determine the exact cost because the heater will hopefully not run flat out.

First of all don’t set the temperature too high. 10 or 12°c is perfect. The fish will keep feeding and it will stabilize the temperature, removing the big fluctuations.

If you fit a timer onto the heater you can run it at night time and may benefit from cheap rate electric.

You can insulate the sides of the pond if you want too and it will help, but the main heat loss in most ponds is the water surface.

Spend some money on a good pond cover.

Anything is better than nothing. Drop down sides made of netting will break the wind and prevent massive heat loss.

A thick plastic sheet rolled over at night will trap some heat inside.

Polycarbonate panels will keep the heat in and let light through.

Thick sheets of polystyrene do nothing to enhance your pond aesthetics, but they are amazing insulators.

If you do a good job insulating the pond. It is possible to keep the running costs very low even on a large pond.

When you consider how much it costs to replace even one high quality Koi it makes sense to heat your pond and insulate it properly.

Thanks for taking the time to watch this video if you like what you see then be sure to subscribe to the channel, give the video a thumbs up and post any questions in the comments below.