Ok, I know it has been discussed somewhere but cant find it. My 2 acre pond is 11 ft deep and not quite 3 years old. I just assembled my Kasco 1/2 hp 3 diffuser aeriation system on the shore and am running the airline this weekend. I'm axcited!! My question is remind me again about start up times. Kasco says one hour a day during the day for a whole week and then graduate from there. Please tell me what most of ya'll are recommending. My pond does not smell now and when walking in the pond it seems to have maybe 3 inches of muck. No trees around the pond so don't suspect a lot of decomposition on the bottom. Please advise on start up or "break in" times. Just don't want to screw anything up and kill all my fish!!
I'm no expert but I'd start the first day at 15 minutes and double the time each day until you're aerating for the number of hours per day that you want. I'm sure one of the experts will be on here soon to correct me if I'm wrong.
Hey Flame congrats... I remember the first time I saw them bubbles come up from my water I too was excited!! Sounds like your pond bottom is in pretty good shape so you may not have to worry to much about toxic junk at least, however it is fairly warm out at this point so you need to start slow like Larry said. There is not rush in this.
I would do 15 minutes the first day, check things out make sure you don't have any nasty smells. If you do keep it at 15 mins till most of that stink is gone. If you don't go to 30 minutes and then 1 hour then 2 and then 4. I stayed at 4 for a week for 1 reason.
1. The next jump to 8 seemed like an awful lot right away! So I played it safe. Was I right or wrong? I don't know really but it worked for me. Do you know your turnover rate? Another wards how long will it take your 3 diffuser setup to turn your pond over at least once. That should be the time you set your air for minimum once you are done breaking it in if your not going to run it 24/7. Keep us posted takes some pics!! I'm sure someone else will be on soon to tell you anything else you need to know buddy!!
Congrats
RC
Ok, another silly question about my new aeriation system. Because of a rotton egg or sulphur smell when start up....I pumped 15 minutes a day and went to 30 minutes. Now for 4 days I have been at one hour a day. Only smell a little sulphur smell at start up and lasts maybe 5 minutes. No dead or sick fish and they are feeding real good still. My question is with this tropical storm coming in I might see 5-8 inches of rain in the next 3-4 days here in east Texas. I am only 12 inches low in the pond and it may go over the spillway or may not but none the less will have a lot of water running into the pond. Do I stay on my plan of one hour a day for the rest of the week and then start stepping it up more from there or... with all this rain coming in should I not run it at all???? Don't want to hurt the fish. Who would have thought a tropical storm would come in the middle of my break in period. Please advise what you think I should do.
Do you take water off the bottom or the top? If the bottom, the new water should do nothing but good, as it forces out more of the bad stuff. In your shoes, I'd stay the course unless you observe something bad going on.
I take water off the top by a 20 foot wide spillway only. It has only gone over it twice in 2 and 1/2 years.
I would stay the course and continue with your start up program. Now for me, I could use the large rain event. I could use a big flush to reduce my high nutrient levels in the pond. the syphon system has run only once since I built the pond 3 yrs ago.
Flame if that's all your getting smell wise I would jump it up to 2 hours and keep it there even with the rain event that should mix your water enough to help with all the rain that enters your pond. Of course rain is a good thing but when you get so much it can drastically change your water temp and encourage your pond to turn over... this is when I believe the fish kill can happen but with you mixing your water even for 2 hours I think you will be fine as the pond should have enough mixed water to keep it from any significant turnover issue.
RC