Customers say
Customers report mixed experiences with the pond heater’s functionality, with some saying it worked well for a week while others found it useless. The ice retention performance is also mixed – while some say it kept their pond above freezing, others report it wasn’t warm enough. The durability receives mixed reviews, with some finding it well-made while others report it failing after a few years. The heater effectively keeps fish alive through winter and maintains a large opening on the pond surface, though customers note issues with the GFI breaker tripping and the cord length being too short. Value for money opinions are divided between those who find it excellent for the price and those who consider it not worth the cost.
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A quick rundown of this product’s key features:
ENERGY SAVING: 3 different wattages of pond deicers for outdoor ponds of virtually any size, see our zone chart to choose the right wattage deicer for your pond in your zone
THERMOSTATICALLY CONTROLLED: Deicer is thermostatically controlled to turn on and off as needed to keep your pond from freezing over
FLOATING & SUBMERSIBLE: Can be used as a floating pond deicer out of the box or in seconds converts to a submersible pond deicer
SAFETY CERTIFIED: This pond heater has been tested & certified by MET Labs to exceed USA/CA electrical safety standards; IMPORTANT! Heating element must be submerged in water at all times when in use
BRAND YOU TRUST: Designed by K&H with OVER 20 years of experience in creating safe, innovative, quality products for pets; Two-year limited warranty
SIZE: This model uses 250 watts of power, please refer to our zone chart to see if this is the right choice for your pond in your area
IMPORTANT: Keep the heating element free from mineral build up, allowing mineral build up can cause the heater to stop working or trip your GFCI; designed for 110/120 volt electrical current only
FOAM: Natural dissolved gases in your water can create foam in or around the deicer due to the temperature change, this is normal and is not toxic, it is natural
Our Top Reviews
Reviewer: H. Kwitschau
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great Deicer
Review: I bought this product in November with the expectation it would just keep a hole in the ice. We had a couple near zero degree nights in Northern Illinois the end of November and it kept the entire Pond liquid so I’ve kept the pumps running. All through November and December the pond was about 42°. It is now January and we’re getting Sub-Zero nights. Last night was 4° below zero and it is still keeping the pond about 34°. My pumps are still running. I tied this thing off so it couldn’t float to the edge and melt or burn anything. The only ice I have in the pond this morning is the section where the hornwort grew to the surface of the water. I do think this is a fantastic product and the only downside I would say is being 1500 watts it does consume a lot of electricity. However it does its job and is allowing me to keep the pumps running so I am quite happy with it.
Reviewer: BigB
Rating: 1.0 out of 5 stars
Title: UPDATE 3/21/2025: Replacement lasted LESS THAN 2 months
Review: UPDATE 3/21/25 The SECOND heater I bought (see below) has now also failed, after LESS THAN 2 months. I have contacted K&H customer service again, but as of now, I wouldn’t recommend this heater to anyone, unless you want to treat it as a “disposable” purchase. I won’t buy another one.We’ll see what/if K&H responds on this, but I’m not holding my breath, since they didn’t respond at all last time.UPDATE 2/24/25 It seems that K&H can/will only respond via AI-generated emails, because I’ve received NO response from them to my second email regarding the heater not functioning after 2 months. I wound up buying a second heater, as it got quite cold (-15 degrees) while I was waiting for a response from the vendor. So, the following comments apply to the SECOND heater:1) this one has, so far, kept the pond temperature much cooler than the first one – between 42 and 48 degrees F. This is more what I expected from the advertising.2) it got me through the super cold spell, and is currently still working3) I took the heater out of the pond today, and it was already showing significant corrosion, after less than a month of use. I would HIGHLY recommend that K&H apply a coating to the coil, much like is used on AC and heating units. Hopefully, someone from K&H will read this and make the change for future potential customers.4) As I said above, still no response from K&H, which is very disappointing.Overall, the second heater is slightly better than the first one, just because of the lower thermostatic temperature, but I still have to stick with 3 stars, since K&H’s customer service seems to be only by bots.ORIGINAL POST:I bought this heater to keep my outdoor pond from freezing my Koi. I started using it in late November and it quit working today (1/29). As others have posted, it just trips the GFI outlet now. I’ve cleaned the unit (which wasn’t that corroded, but to no avail. I live in Nebraska, and it can get quite cold here over the winter.Pros:* it worked well, when it worked. We just survived the deep freeze here that a lot of the country got, and one night was down to -10 degrees. It worked through all of that.* Price is pretty competitive* It DID heat the whole pond (I used it submersed) most of the time, with just a thin layer of ice around the corners of the pond during the extreme cold spellCons:* The advertising led me to believe that it would keep the water “just above freezing”, but the unit I got consistently heated the water into the high 40’s to mid-50’s. I questioned this with K&H, and they said that was “normal”. Ok, not a super problem, other than paying for electricity to heat water unnecessarily, AND my fish wanted to eat all the time instead of sleeping.* It doesn’t have a thermostat that can be controlled by the user (see above)* It really needs an “in use” indicator light on the unit, so that you can tell when your money is going down the drain for electricity* The unit quit working after 2 months.In retrospect, I probably should have just purchased a deicer, but I was nervous because my pond is only about 18″ deep. I have bought another unit, which will hopefully last longer.I would probably have rated this 4 stars if it had continued to work (deduct for the “overheating”), but for now, I’ll leave it with 3 stars, and see how the second unit performs.
Reviewer: Pro
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: So far so Good.
Review: So far so good. I am new to taking care of Koi fish. I have taken care of large fish inside of a fish tank, but never in a pond. I had a feeling that the temperature outside could potentially harm the fish so after researching proper care of Koi fish, I realized I was in our need of a pond heater.. This heater is working great so far. Outside temperature is 41° and the pond water is steadily rising from 32° to 35.8°. I will check the temperature again with my laser thermometer tonight and see if the temperature maintains or falls and by how much. Delivery was fast! Directions very easy to follow.Update: temps have fallen to 29° outside and the heater is holding around 30° to 33°.
Reviewer: Todd Huebner
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Float ring melted on first one!!!
Review: First one MELTED while in the water in WINTER?!?!?
Reviewer: James O’Hare
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: so far I am impressed
Review: I was worried about reviews but so far this has worked perfectly and since i bought the 1500 watt item I was wondering if it would be enough for my pond that is a 15×15 liner and 30 inches deep. not sure how many gallons exactly but if i just leave the thing on all the time the pond does not have any ice except where it flows down the rocks. this got me wondering how much electricity it uses and i attached it to a plug that i can look at from my smartphone and see how many hours a day it is actually drawing power. I have since started to run it 30 minutes an hour and it keeps the pong half clear and half ice. So hope this helps…i believe the device is able to turn itself on and off to keep the water above freezing temperature but if you lift it out of the water while it is on you will see just how hot this thing gets! it actually can burn off the scale or mineral deposits from the pond by doing this. I like this very much but i am now buying the 750 watt item for my small barrel at my main home (the 1500 watt is running at my second home) so far I can not see any way that this would break and i have been using it for 2 months in denver winter. If it breaks i will update if not i typically do not come back to my reviews. oh by the way do not touch this to see if it is working! 🙂 it is crazy hot even in the water but out of the water it heats up so hot it burns off the scale and you can gently poke the layer off or just dip it in the water a few times and the water will knock the layer right off and it looks like brand new again! I use it floating but it can be used at the bottom if you want by simply unscrewing the top part that has the floating device, you can unscrew it without any tools. I like that. my goldfish likes to hang out around the warm water so i make sure to keep it in the middle away from the raccoons reach 🙂
Reviewer: Kristie Johnson
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great product my fish stayed alive
Review: Absolutely great product. It kept my fish pine from freezing over. I’ve had several heaters for my pond. This one is definitely kept it from freezing over the whole pond was actually not frozen other heaters. It would just be a circle around the heater. This was my whole paw it’s a big paw. I have about 30 coins in there. I highly recommend it.
Reviewer: KJC
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Had it in the pond for 2 months working great…. Had it connected to a smart thermostat and it kept the pond at 41 degrees consistently until Wednesday, the temp dropped to -30 outside and it must have shorted out and now my pond is freezing over with all my huge koi in it! Tried to reorder this one again but it’s a week out so I had to get another that was large enough for our pond but it’s only a deicer and my temps are low…. Thankfully it’s keeping a hole in the top but when the heater deicer shorted it cut out all the air pumps as well and froze by the time we realized . I brought them inside to thaw and they thankfully still work fine.It’s -48 here today so it’s not like I can go outside and start lifting the covers and do anything to help them…….. Thankfully our pond is insulated and has custom plexiglass tops so it creates a bit of a hot tub like atmosphere under the covers and that’s all that’s keeping my temps above totally freezing!We loved this unit and made our pond perfect and our fish doing awesome ( we have an underwater camera so I know they have been ok but I’m too scared to look at it right now because there’s nothing I can do) but when it crapped out we could have lost all our fish!The new one arrived, the pond was at 31.2😬 and within 42 hours with outside temps lower than -30, the temp was back up to 41 where I like it to be which is pretty amazing…. Not a bit of ice anywhere when 2 days ago we had a 1-2” thick layer.So it is wicked but just make sure you have good power, the 1500W is over 13amp and if you only have a 15amp breaker you won’t be able to run much else. We’ve never had an issue before so I have to assume the heater itself internally shorted because our outside power is fine and the new one works.Hoping this replacement will last for many years but as long as my fish live through this winter I’ll be happy!
Reviewer: Tint1n78
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Great item, use it in my condo all winter does the job
Reviewer: carlvernon
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Can’t use this product 110volt unfortunately but l would like to return and buy a 240bolt if possible
Reviewer: Amazon_Junkie
Rating: 1.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Started having problems with this unit tripping the circuit. Replaced the outlet (thinking that was the issue) and still had the same problem. Ended up with 4 inches of ice and lost half my fish. Now, several days later the unit is completely dead and I’ve lost more fish. Return window ended a month ago. Not impressed. Have ordered a replacement from a different company.*********************************************************************************************************************I swear by this brand and model for my 50 gallon pond. I had the first one for 10 years (a good run IMO) before having to replace it. As you can see from the photo, my fish are thriving and several of them were put in at the same time as the first unit, so this product lives up to it’s claim.It heats up enough to keep the ice at bay without heating the water. Per specs I could have gotten away with the 250W unit, but I erred on the side of caution as I didn’t want too much ice to accumulate around it.Highly recommend!
Reviewer: adrian rumsey
Rating: 1.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: It was not what I thought I really hoped it would be a heater so sent it back it probably would be OK for ice
Price effective as of Jun 30, 2025 22:45:24 UTC
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