I cannot get an accurate read from bottom temp.
The meat thermometer on a stick, by the time I pull it up through the water column and see what it says, I am afraid its not an accurate reading.
And I have a multimeter that takes a k-type thermocouple, but its all over the place. for starters, its not calibrated right and I dont think there is a way to adjust that. According to the meat thermometer it says the air temp is 36 and surface water temp 38.
The thermocouple shows air temp at 38, surface water at 28, and bottom water at 26:confused2:
So that idea is out the window.
I did clean the inlet screen of the pump to assure full flow, and checked it by timing how long it takes to fill 5 gallon buckets.
With the elevation I am only flowing 2400gph. Which means it would take 6 hours to circulate the entire volume of water. pump is drawing from 30" deep, and bottom is 66" deep.
Unless things change, or I start getting ice dams in the waterfall that drain the pond, I think I am gonna chance it. Worst case scenerio is I have to buy another $10 worth of fish next year.
Hate the though of having to pull the pump and chancing the hoses freezing, because how I routed them and hid them for the waterfall it would be a PITA to remove the hoses as well as the power cord for the pump. In theory they should all drain back to the pond....and in theory where the hoses enter the water, the water inside will freeze at the same rate as the water outside the hose resulting in no damage....but......theory dont always work out.