Hey all,
Ive read a lot on here but not posted a ton. My initial problem was muddy water and did a large alum/lime treatment and now clarity is much much better. My pond is an acre surface area with average depth 10-11 ft.
Been 4-5 weeks since alum treatment and while water looks tons better i do have just a hint of green tint in the water. Noting that looks like an algae bloom or at least not to me but this got me reading on what else I can do to increase pond health. Which sent me down the road of learning about aeration. Fountain, bubbler, thermocline no thermocline, water temps, turn over and my heads spinning tryin to sort it all out.
The overall look of the pond is very important to me...just want it to look nice. While fish health is important its just not a main concern at the moment. Pond has fish but almost never gets fished. So i started lookin at fountains and diy solutions and so on.
Here is one of my main questions. Pond temp is also important to me because I have a geothermal pond loop and adding a closed loop chilling system for a pool. So that lower temp water at the bottom of the pond is important for me to have it as cold as possible. With the alum cleaning up the water clarity Id imagine water temps are going to start rising a bit with more sunlight penetration.

Ive looked at floating fountain pumps, submersible pumps, shore pumps, air pumps and so on. just wanted some opinions on what direction i should be pointed.

The geothermal pond loop and closed loop chilling system for a pool will both add heat to the pond water as will any aeration system you add. So, to keep the pond as cool as possible, forgo the aeration system or at least only do surface aeration, such as, fountains with a shallow intake. I am not saying that bottom diffused aeration would ruin your residential systems, but a bottom (or near bottom) aeration system will change the lower water temps during the summer and you will lose some efficiency. If aesthetics are your main concern, a shallow fountain or fountains will effect the ponds temps alot less especially down where your geothermal lines are.

I'm not experienced with geothermal systems, but I can give you bit of info to explore with a geothermal expert of your choice...

My 1/4 acre pond (10 foot deep) had bottom water temps of 70 degrees F before the bottom aeration was installed and started up (late May). Within one week of only running 12 hours at night, my bottom water was measuring 10 degrees higher. Bottom line, is that you could warm your lower water column by 10 degrees with an appropriately sized aeration system and that 10 degrees will effect the geothermal system's efficiency. Check with your expert to get an idea of what that would do to your wallet. SideNote: I, now, have my 3 diffusers set about 4 foot below the surface and still do not have any evidence of a thermocline. At least at my small, rather shallow, pond...a thermocline with aeration is a myth.

Fountains are very pretty to look at and, given you install enough of them, they can help alot with floaty stuff on the surface and help keep the water more reflective. And, you can run them when you want/need as opposed to bottom aeration that needs to be run on a regular schedule.

My 2 cents, Welcome from West Central MO!

awesome and along the same lines of what I was thinking. Just need to change a from a sub to a land pump more than likely but yeah i do not want to have my temps jump that much. love the efficiency of the geo and want to optimize that for damn sure. appreciate the feed back
thanks!