How to Make a Pond Deicer

Pond enthusiasts know that winter is especially hard on their plants and animals, specifically when a pond freezes over with ice. The ice prevents the water from receiving oxygen and causes gases from decaying plants and animals to build to toxic levels. A homemade pond deicer, which is essentially a floating box of warm air, rests on the surface of the water and prevents ice from closing in over the small area around it, protecting the plants and fish from asphyxiation during winter.

45-quart Styrofoam cooler with lid
Pencil
Plastic outdoor portable floodlight
40-watt lightbulb
Screwdriver or awl
Plastic ties
Utility knife
Foam swimming tube
All-weather extension cord

Instructions

- 1
  Remove the lid from a Styrofoam cooler and set it aside. Set a floodlight down inside the center, well away from the cooler's sides. The floodlight should consist of a socket to hold a lightbulb, and a cone-shaped base with screw holes that would affix to a wall. Hold the floodlight in the position it will be secured in inside the cooler when it is upside down.
- 2
  Mark the position of the floodlight base's screw holes, with a pencil, while it is in position inside the cooler. Set the floodlight aside. Punch two small holes through the bottom of the cooler with a screwdriver, about 1 inch apart near each screw hole mark. Set the light fixture in place again, then strap it to the base of the cooler, using plastic ties that thread through the two small holes on each side.
- 3
  Cut a small hole for the light cord to pass through from the inside of the cooler, where the fixture is strapped, out through the bottom of the cooler to the outside. Pull the cord through.
- 4
  Turn the cooler over so the light fixture is hanging down inside and the bottom is now on top, with the cord coming out. Tip the cooler slightly to one side to check that the lightbulb is not touching any Styrofoam. Adjust the floodlight as necessary.
- 5
  Cut four pieces of foam swimming tube to match the length of the cooler sides -- two long and two short.
- 6
  Punch holes about 8 inches apart along the base of the overturned cooler. Make the holes about 5 inches up from the ground.
- 7
  Strap a piece of foam swimming tube to the side of the cooler using a plastic tie. Insert the plastic tie through the hole in the Styrofoam, and loop it over the foam tube. Pull it tight enough so the tube rests right up against the base of the cooler, but not so tight that the tie cuts through the Styrofoam. Repeat with the other three pieces of foam swimming tube.
- 8
  Punch four to six small holes through the top of the Styrofoam cooler with the screwdriver to provide a way for some of the heat to escape from the floodlight inside the cooler when it is on the pond.
- 9
  Set the homemade pond deicer at the edge of the pond on the water, with the floodlight plugged into an all-weather extension cord.

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