Winterizing my pond

OK, time to winterize. As soon as I'm done posting here, I'm off to do a bunch of work.

I remove all floating plants, into the compost pile with 'em. All marginal plants get cut back and sunk to the bottom of the pond. Take a hand net and scoop out any crud available at this time. Leave some crud on the bottom, Mr. frog needs a comfy place to hibernate! Try one last time to catch some of this year's goldfish babies, as their survival rate has proven to be pretty poor over winter. Big fish have no problem.

I live on a partially wooded lot, backing onto a 15 acre forest, so fallen leaves are a huge issue. I make a tent out of pond netting to catch the leaves and defelct them to the sides so I can remove them easily.

I take a 5 gallon bucket, stand up a 5 foot piece of wood in it, then fill the bucket with pebbles or sand to hold it vertical. Then I place the bucket in the center of the pond so the wood serves as the center pole for my net tent. This way I put the net over everyting and all leaves fall to the edges where I can easily dispose of them.

Also put in a de-icer, it comes on when it gets freezing, keeps a hole in the ice to let nasty gasses escape. Other people keep their pump running all winter, but I choose not to do this as I had a bad experience my first winter (don't ask).