The wife and I are building a home currently. My water table is about 2 feet below grade on the property. We want a basement and to do so we have to build up. Dirt's quite expensive to buy so I figured I would get a pond out of the deal and use that dirt to help the grade look nice. I'm having a 1/2 - 3/4 acre pond put in for all the needed dirt. The soil in about 10 inches of topsoil followed by at least 10 feet of sand. The test holes we dug to 10 feet are all holding water.

To the question, do I need to aerate in a water table pond? I was thinking I would need to, but I guess its possible that the water will naturally cycle through the pond because its the water table.

Unrelated note. It's an extra 4k to do a 3/4 acre pond over 1/2 acre pond. Reason it's more isn't just the digging but rough and final grading around the new house. I plan to stock not necessarily for trophy fish but for food, possibly YP and Walley as they are my favorite to east here in SE Michigan.

Water coming from under ground is virtually devoid of oxygen, just like well water. So I would definitely consider installing aeration.

The drawback to a water table pond comes into play if your water table dries up or goes deeper. May be hard to keep the pond full. However...if the pond is close to the grade mound you're building, you're also creating watershed which will help with runoff.

I did the exact same thing when building my house, but my pond isnt water table. It didnt start seeping water until we hit 10 feet. When it filled, it only took one good winter rain to do so and it's been full ever since. We lose about a foot during extended summer drought thru evaporation, but so far that's as low as its gotten.

I put in aeration last year and run it mainly at night/early morning during the summer.

Thanks Mike, I will definitely put an aerator in the pond then. The water table rise and fall is a concern, but not too much of a one after I talked to a few neighbors. Almost every neighbor around me has a pond for similar reason to mine and the couple I talked to said the water table only fluctuates a couple feet throughout the year. I figured as long as I have the contractor get me 15 feet deep in the spring when the water table is high it should remain above 10 feet throughout the year.

Actually there is oxygen in underground water. I had a 400ft well and used it for my aquarium. I'd put fish in after filling the tank up, pretty immediate. Shallow wells have even more oxygen.

Obviously, water has oxygen, as it's one third of its chemical makeup, but the DO level is very low at best. DO gets infused as the surface makes contact with the air, which is how an aquarium can get that initial bump as it's being filled and the water circulates. Without the added aeration, with fish present, the DO will be quickly used up.

Pond aeration works in exactly the same way, by bringing water up from depth and putting it in contact with the surface.

When filling a pond with a well, unless it's being sprayed thru the air, or using a venturi, that water will have hardly, if any, DO. That's where the venturi device comes into play, by picking up air as water passes the valve and infusing DO before it enters the pond.

I know this thread is a little dated, but I'm in a very similar situation as Adam.
My question back to Mike is this: For those of us who have very high Water Table, is it safe to assume that evaporation would take away the high DO water and it would be replaced by new, low DO water from the table all the time, making a need for fairly aggressive aeration forever?
Also: I've read a little about "cycling" of new BOW. Does that apply for ponds that are filled exclusively from the high water table? Does/can aeration play a roll in that process?