If you need a water circulator, and do not want to spend the 300 to 500-dollar price for a used or new circulator, I have successfully used the 1/6-hp utility pumps sold by Lowe's now selling for about $80 each........ the Lowe's Utiltech, made in China, 1/6-hp utility pump. I used three pumps positioned for best coverage and ran them in line with a temp/time control for the three winter months. Each pump draws water from below and expels it straight up which agitates the surface water. It is easy to hang each pump with a single rope line from the dock or boat lift.
For its size, compared to other 1/6-hp pumps, the Utiltech 1/6-hp is very heavy because it is made with a vinyl coated, cast iron body and the heavy weight helps to keep it stationary while in use, hanging from a single rope line.
Colder air temps call for longer running time to fight back the building ice ..... especially in the month of January ...... it's all about the air temp ..... and ice is much stronger, sturdier and resistant to a hand held ice chopper at say 10-degrees than it is at 25-degrees. Colder = stronger and more elastic and sturdy ice ........ colder temps = a stronger and sturdier molecular bond within the ice.
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One of the neighborhood issues with water circulators is the noise of constantly splashing water. Is possible to have an unoccupied home, next door, with a noisy, constant, splashy circulator that creates a lot of unwanted noise, like a water torture, for the next door neighbor who lives there in the winter ........ what to do ...... who do you call ........ hello-911......all this splashy, water noise is driving me c-r-a-z-y ....... so's please, let's get a cop down here asap .....pdq ......and make it a code-3 ........ yikes .....
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