i know its straight forward wiring, but wanted to make sure its ok to pigtail power and ground from surrounding guage to power depth finder or should it be ran from fuse box or battery?

In my opinion...your depth finder is kinda important. Way more important than your stereo, or mood lighting...lol. You can pigtail the grounds together (make sure its the right wire size), but I would run a seperate power (fused) wire. Either find an unused terminal on the fuse block, or run it to the battery. Then, nothing will be able to interfere, or "take out" your depth finder when you need it most.

I hope you don't mind if I hitch onto your thread? Can the leads from the transducer be spliced together to bypass a broken connector plug?

Your saying one or both of the female/male connectors are broken ? Jeez..I'd prolly call the manufacturer on that question. They obviously would know for sure. Hate to splice them and have it somehow ruin something.

It's a 2 prong connector coming from the transducer and plugs into the pigtail to the gauge. Actually I just want to change the connector because one end is broken.