Surface temps here are currently 89-90 F and I am ready to start aerating my 1/4 acre pond. I am using a 1/4 HP Gast with a single membrane diffuser in 13 ft of water. Any thoughts on how slow I should go with mixing the water in these types of temps? I have it running for 15 minutes this morning.

Hey Shorty,

Just 15 mins, then 30 then an hour, then 2 hours then 4, Just keep slowing taking it up until you get where you want to be.

RC

Would you start the 15 minutes in the morning and then double the time going back into the night? My plan is to just run the aerator from 10PM to 7AM.

Should I split the run times?

15 minutes at 6:30AM, 15 minutes at 10PM = 1/2 hour on day two?

The reason for the slow start up times is to limit the amount of Hydrogen Sulfide that is dispersed into the pond. That is very toxic to fish.

I have no actual data, but I'd do it until you reached 24 hr run time. Then I'd drop it back to only doing it at night.

Hopefully Cody can chime in and shed more light on it.

I guess you could split the time if you wanted. I put mine in mid June and it was hot too and I did not do all that but I did not live at my pond like you do I presume! That gives you a little more options. I think you would be fine doing that. Then eventually set it and forget so to speak.

RC

What kind of benefit might be had in taking up to 24 hr run and then backing it back down? Just to make sure there had been a thorough mixing of the water column?

Yes, if you don't do a temp profile to see if the temperature is within a few degrees from the surface all the way to the deepest part of the pond.

I know the bottom 2ft was a lot cooler than the rest of the pond, I swam down and checked the diffuser to make sure it was actually upright before testing it.

Shorty you will be fine. If you want once you get to the 4 hour mark run it there for a few days before you move on. The key here is just don't turn it on and walk away. Like Esshup said there can be a lot of gases in your pond that could come out and end up killing some of your fish at first. That's why you start out slow.

Rc

Hows it going Shorty? Everything ok?

RC

Everything appears to be fine, it ran for an hour this morning. We have had a couple of cool nights in a row and my surface temps have cooled down a bit. Last night surface temps were 88F and my fish fed very well, this morning surface temps were 80F.

Last night while feeding I noticed some newly hatched fry near dock.

Cool sounds like your on the right track man!

RC

Two hours this morning, four tomorrow.

I watched something chase/spook a school or 30-40 small GSH along the edge of the bubble this morning.

The water was very green last night when I fed my fish, visibility has gone from 12" to down 6". My fish fed well last night. Air and water temps have climbed back up as well, we have heat advisories in effect here this afternoon.

Shorty, is the visibility moving to 6" a problem? everywhere I have read that comment here at the forum, they were having problems with the water and blooms. I am watching your post here as I plan on adding air at a later time but was curious about moving hot water. And I have added 1850 res to the pond before spawning and have yet to see any in the pond. I hope someday to catch some of them like you.

Tracy

Visibility improved back to 12" last night and this morning, I think I am OK but my water is still very green. My thoughts are that beginning aeration may have made few more nutrients available and my bloom a little stronger.

We had heat advisories here yesterday afternoon, surface temps last night were 95 degrees in the first 12-15" of water in my pond, below that they were much cooler when I stuck my arm down into the water next to my dock. My aerator is not running during the day yet. After running the diffuser for 7 hours last night surface temps were down to 82 degrees this morning and the temp felt even as far as I could put my arm in the water next to the dock.

This time of year I would be more worried about not aerating than starting one up. We have a cold front moving in today with rain in the forecast which sometimes results in fish kills.

Blooms, algae or plant shifts in ponds after heavier rain events can often occur due to a infusion of nutrients that changes the nutrient balance in the pond. I had some heavy rains that caused flooded ground water to leach through the soil into the pond. Shortly after that a brown water condition developed. It looked a lot like tannin stain. When I looked at it microscopically there was a shift to a lot more of the brown pigmented algae. I won't bore you with the species names. The bloom is now dying and decreasing while releasing protein from the algae. The aerator bubbling causes these proteins to make large bubbles on the water surface. It looks almost like soap suds.

I have been seeing some large soap like bubbles during my start up procedure.

We hit 100F for the first time yesterday with a light thunderstorm over night and .2" in the rain gauge this morning. It is overcast and 73F now with a chance rain throughout the day, it is supposed to make it to 83F for a high today. Still waiting to see if we get heavy rains or not today. I am very happy my aerator is running at night now, it should reduce the chance of a summer fish kill.

We haven't gotten as hot as the rest of you. Maybe low to mid-90s. We usually have a lot of wind here in the mountains, so I've never seriously thought about an aeration system.

However, my 1/3 acre put-and-take pond has begun having issues in about the last week with floating algae. It is like a thick oil slick with lots of bubbles trapped in it. I'm not sure what it is. I'm thinking it is a blue-green algae. I've also got some filamentous algae floating up.

I've done a couple of things. One was to add some dye -- not a lot, but some. That seems to have helped a little bit. I also made an algae trap with silt fence at the bottom of the rip-rap spillway that feeds this pond, via a settling pond. I've been running my 2-inch semi-trash pump for about an hour each day. The intake is very near the water surface, and the output is hitting the rip-rap above the silt fence. I've collected a fair amount of "crap" in the silt fence, which I've been emptying in the woods below my ponds.

I don't know if it is really doing any good, but it makes me feel better.

I don't have these problems come summer time. I think it's because of all the chara I have. I think it keeps things in check. I don't like it and it gets in the way sometimes but more and more I believe like Bob has said that it serves a purpose and is not always a bad thing.

I do run air however and I always treat my pond in July and August with beneficial bacteria I think that helps this time of year!

RC