I have a 3000gallon pond and live in the way north of WI. Our first snowfall can be as early as Thanksgiving and does not melt completely until around Easter. Our temp. average is around 15 above 0 to 20 below with many many feet of snow (makes for a very long cold winter). I would like to keep my pond open for the winter; however, after much research and reading, I'm wondering if it is even possible with my conditions? I'm sure I will need at least one de-icer. Will I also need an aerator? (I do have around 9-6" goldfish, with about 2 dozen babies in the pond and my deepest part of the pond is about 3' deep). I am so confused!!

I suggest running air stones on the bottom of the pond so that the bubbles come up near the de-icer. You may want to put in two de-icers.

I keep two of my ponds open in the winter. I keep the waterfall going in the 1800 gallon pond which is something you can't do there (too cold) but that provides aeration. I keep the de-icer for that pond in the top of the biofilter and put a Rubbermaid tub lid over it to keep the wind off. In my 153 gallon pond, I have both a de-icer and an air stone. The air stone alone is probably enough in that case. I keep the de-icer as backup. Before I started using the air stone, the frogs in that pond would suffocate over winter. Also, on windy or blizzard days, the de-icer would stop working (the wind can shut it off, and it has to be reset), and the pond would freeze over.

If you can provide some sort of hat for the de-icer to keep off the snowfall and wind, then it works much better. Otherwise, the wind can deactivate it, or the snow can literally bury it.

The de-icers are to keep holes in the pond. The air stones help with that but also aerate the pond so the animals don't suffocate.

My page on winterizing is at http://www.fishpondinfo.com/winter.htm

It's pretty cold where you are so you can expect the pond ice to get pretty thick. Hopefully the three feet of depth will be enough for the animals to hunker down.