Will

I wish I had some advice for you, for winterizing your pond in respect to keeping it partially open. We shut the entire pond down, unhook the pump, biofilter, etc. We bring in our Koi for the winter and keep them in a 100 gal stock tank in the basement. John has a filter system, chiller to chill water to around 51 degrees (low temp keeps them less active), bubblers, etc. Since they are still somewhat active at 51 degrees, they get fed cherrios twice a week. This will be about the 6th winter they've wintered this way.

Hopefully someone else that has a pond and keeps it partially open will chime in and give some pointers.

Sandy

I let my little pond freeze up too- Same old fish go into the same old tank in the basement as well.
I did however find some articles listed at the MN Water Garden Society- They are a great group of folks and have a large membership! You might want to look into joining their group.
I did see a few discussions about winterizing over in the pond forum- maybe they could help answer this-

Julie

Here is a link that might be useful: MN Water Garden Society articles

Well, these are just a few comets, not koi so I won't be out too much should things not go well. It's interesting that I never even had a rim of ice on the pond and my rain barrel had a thick ice plug (only got up to 28 here on Sun). Life's an adventure and I'll definitely know 'more' come next fall.
Thanks for the feedback gang,
Will