Hey All, I have been reading these forums for the past couple months getting myself educated. I am really looking for some advice on where to start.

Background:

I bought a new to me house which has a pond about 30 feet from the back patio. I was told the pond was dug out to 15 feet 40 years ago. It is around 1/4 acre. There used to be a tree in the middle of the pond which has fallen now (its like a little island in the middle of the pond with some brush growing out today.) The island from what I can tell is submerged with water yet the bushes still are growing with some dead branches sticking out at the furthest edges.

I bought an aerator and set it up on what I believed was a the deepest part of the pond (its around 8 feet deep at that point). Since its a donut shaped pond, i have been struggling with the best place to put it. After reading forums I bought two 9 in micro diffusers which I am waiting to be delivered as what was included with my Pondmaster wont create the small bubbles I understand is needed to move enough water.

What I have done to date is added pond dye, ran aerator 24/7, added some pondlogic bacteria. Smell from the pond seems to have gone away for the most part.

What I would like advice on is what to do about the island in the middle of the pond, how to control the ridiculous amount of duckweed and algae growing on top, and what do to about the inlets and outlets which seem to be chuck full of duckweed and algae as well. I would really like to clear up the water and pond and am at a loss on where to start.

I attached a photo of the pond as of last week. Its in the middle of the picture, green stuff all over, on the left front you can see where my diffuser is putting out bubbles running.

any opinions on what to do is appreciated.
thanks, jake

Welcome to PB Jake. I can't answer questions about your aeration needs, but there are a few people here that might be able to help you out. From that pic, sure does look like you have an algae/duckweed problem! I would want to clear some of that up too.

Have you considered tilapia, or do you know even if you are allowed to stock them? They work well in a situation like yours.

Are there any other fish in the pond?

With that island in the middle, I would be surprised if was 8' deep. Are you up for a total renovation? That might be the quickest way to your end goals.

Thanks for the reply fishnchips. So I know there are fish in there as I can see birds pulling them out of the water to eat um . There was also a bit of activity on top of the water before I started running an aerator.

I will look into talapia. I am not in a position to dig out the pond yet. I highly though about using an herbicide to kill it all off but that stuffs pretty expensive at the moment for me. Fish seems like a cheaper option...I will take a look into it! thank you!
Jake

Jake, if your not ready for total renovation, then start off small steps in learning how to take care of it the way it is now. I would get a minnow trap and catch what you can. Take pics, and post them for identification. Fish the pond in all different ways, times, approaches, and see if you come up with bigger ones that won't be in the trap. You might have a nice little pond and not even know it till you do these basic things. If your a pond owner, you will need to invest in a trap anyway, might as well be now.

Welcome to PBF Jake.

What model Pondmaster pump are you running? At 8 foot depth an AP100 would put out between two and three CFM which should be enough air to supply two 9" round diffusers or even more smaller diffusers. You could put three different diffusers around the pond and run through a manifold to adjust flow to account for diffusers at different depths.

I run three AP100's each going into a double Matala diffuser in my 3 acre pond running in 8-9' depths. Just yesterday started up another AP100 (4th one)running a single Matala 9" in a .065 acre mini forage pond and another 9" in a sediment pond that is probably .2 acre or thereabouts. Used a garden hose manifold to adjust air so less ran to the smaller pond.

Some pics below of the diffusers setup.

An old thread talking about the CFM output of an AP100 link here

If you would like some more pictures showing the pump and manifold setup I can get them.

I don't know what the life expectancy of the Pondmaster pumps will be, but they are economical to buy/replace and as long as a person has low head pressure (under 5 psi) they put out a lot of air for a little electricity. My main rason for going with them was the low electricity cost (about 440 watts for all four pumps) and the ability to run from one to four at any one time thereby lowering running cost even more. If they do not last well it will be easy for me to change to a "better" pump system. I've set my system up so should I decide to go to a single, large, commercial style pump in the future it will just be a matter of installing it and hooking up the air lines. The four pumps are all together with the air lines running to a central location.

More than you needed or probably wanted to know, but thought I would let you know someone other than you is running Pondmaster pumps for larger ponds.

That's better than a donut shaped gut!! LOL... I crack myself up!!