[farne230]

For those who may one day consider a pond heater for their pond, here is what I have learned.

I ordered my pond heater from Keirin koi after talking to Ray Jordan about his Koi-Heat pond heater. Ray installed his last March and decided to go with propane, due to the cost of running long lengths of gas lines.

It took about a month to assemble and deliver. The unit came via frieght lines and well packaged. They offer a metal box as an option. I located my own and had it delivered. I located the unit as close as possible to my existing gas line feeding my hot tub. I installed the box on 6x6 fur posts, tied back to the bakki shower cinder blocks with metal flanges. Bolted the heater which is mounted on a very nice wood backing in the box, cut holes for the 2" intake and discharge, hole for gas, power cord, and furnace exhaust stack. The unit comes with a 5ft power cord, exchanged this for a longer one. Extended the pop-off copper tubing through bottom of box.

Start-up John at Keirrin koi helped me throught start-up (on Sunday before Holiday) what service:
1. Make sure you do not smell gas, open gas valve.
2. Make sure the pressure gage shows 10 or 20psi (shipped with water in unit under pressure-boiler needs this water and pressure to start up). If you purge the lines like I did you can hook a garden hose to hose bibe supplied with a male to male connector you can get from Hardware store. Turn on water and watch pressure rise to 20psi, then shut hose bibe off and start boiler.
3. open all valves.
4. plug in unit to 110v, program thermostate (very easy, three steps, three buttons).
5. turn on boiler (makes noise, within a few min. pipes are hot and you are on your way.

Set temp to 65f and set differance to plus or minus 3 degrees. Gage temp for boiler rose to 145f then to 170f.

Pond temp started out at 58f at 1:30pm, at 6:00pm the temp is 61.5f.