From what I've read, winterizing your pond and making it healthy enough for fish to survive the winter is difficult. Did you find it challenging? Many failures?
It wasn't hard at all as long as the pond is deep enough per my earlier comments and the fish are not freshwater tropicals (we've had comets, shibunkin, and koi make it through without any issue, including deep freezes of 10F/-10C lasting a week or two). Keep the pump on all winter for oxygen. Remove the taro to a filled bucket and stick it on a sunny shelf inside.
Once the temp drops below 40 degrees F (~5C) the fish go dormant, usually under some dead leaves at the bottom or in the cinderblock we have at the deep end. When ice forms they will be fine, as the bubbling pump keeps an open spot for oxygen (it should be bubbling about 1 inch above the water line and not splashing outside the pond liner). If it's a deep freeze and the pump forms an ice bubble, break it open with a hammer. The rest of the ice can stay on the pond surface.
I live in Saskatchewan, where it hovers around -40C for a couple weeks in January/February. Ive heard the pumps can take a beating here, but it's interesting to hear your success story.
We inherited a couple of ponds when we bought our place 4 years back. One has fish in.
To our surprise, every winter the pond freezes over and the fish are fine come spring. In fact they’re thriving and we don’t touch the pond at all - it doesn’t even have a pump.
The other pond could definitely do with cleaning out, but again it’s teaming with wildlife. There’s not a huge window between when the newts leave for the summer and when it freezes in winter. By the time it thaws and we think to do something about it the newts are back again.
Once the temp drops below 40 degrees F (~5C) the fish go dormant, usually under some dead leaves at the bottom or in the cinderblock we have at the deep end. When ice forms they will be fine, as the bubbling pump keeps an open spot for oxygen (it should be bubbling about 1 inch above the water line and not splashing outside the pond liner). If it's a deep freeze and the pump forms an ice bubble, break it open with a hammer. The rest of the ice can stay on the pond surface.