Originally posted by Norm Kopecky:
Cecil, I don't understand what you mean when you say you aerate the water by running it through a 5 gallon bucket with plastic. Could you describe this more? After this process, what sort of DO do you have? Is this your primary form of aeration or is a diffuser at the bottom of your lake the primary form of aeration?
What water quality tests do you run and how often do you perform these tests? Under your conditions, do you have a recommendation of a particular test kit to buy? This subject of using well water completely hasn't been discussed that much here and any other information would be greatly appreciated.
Norm,
As you may, or may not know, well water is typically devoid of oxygen and also has excess nitrogen gas and sometimes excess carbon dioxide.
My subermisble well pump pumps water up to a vertical piece of 1 1/2 inch PVC above ground and then horizontally via an elbow to the top of several five gallon buckets hung in a series below a post. This is several feet off the ground. At the end of this piece of horizontal PVC is another elbow that points down which drops the water via gravity through these buckets. The first bucket has a plastic plate with lots of holes to spread out the flow evenly as it falls. The buckets are filled with a plactic material (biofilter media) that has a high surface area. As the water drops through them via gravity the water is broken up and oxygen is added and nitrogen gas released.
Each buck has most of the bottom cut out and in the bottom is plastic screening to hold in the media. After dropping out of the last bucket the water falls into a tank which now consists of a pit that is lined with an EPDM liner. I have two exit pipes -- one goes to my present trout pond and the other exit pipe forks off to which ever pond I want water to run into dependin on which knife gate valve I open and close.
With this simple contraption I get close to 90 some percent oxygen saturation which provides ample oxygen to the water. If I remember right for my well water temp of 51.6 thats over 10.0 ppm. I also have a upturned elbow at the end of my underground pipes at each pond to cause the water to flow up and spill over which aerates even more. I don't really use the bottom diffusers in my ponds to aerate. I use them more to prevent stratification to prevent an anoxic layer on the bottom and to provide adequate mixing to promote decomposition and the health of the ponds.
Norm, I don't do much chemical testing anymore. I have an expensive ammonia meter and after testing numerous times under many different conditions have yet to have high ammonia levels. Likewise I have an expensive D.O. meter and have never had any problems as long as I don't overcrowd, keep aquatic vegetation and algae blooms in balance, and use my diffuser to prevent stratification and subsequent lethal turnover. As far as PH my alkalinity is so high PH doesn't vary at all even diurnally.
Basically what I am using to aerate my well water is know as a "packed column." I originally used a solid piece of 10 inch PVC packed with the media but with the suggestion of a Canadian Aquaculture educator from one of the websites I frequent, he suggested the five gallon buckets. I get more saturation with the buckets with an open air space between them vs. the solid PVC column.
Here is a link that may help you understand the concept:
http://srac.tamu.edu/191fs.pdf