Pond Boss Forums AERATION Systems questions Hey Ted, here's our finished product!!

Bought my aeration from Ted and these are some pictures from the end result! VERY happy with the quality of the system and of course the one on one consultation and help every step of the way from start to finish. I picked his brain for alot of info and Ted spent more time than he had to explaining the ins and outs of aeration to me. He's probably glad I finally have mine up and running now so he can get something else done!! So here's some pics showing those wonderful bubbles!!

Showing both shallow and deep diffusers running..



My deep diffuser..

My shallow diffuser..

And of course my homemade pump enclosure..

Beautiful grounds Brian! I can't imagine what it would be like to mow along my water's edge!

Very carefully with my 60" zero turn, Rainman, very carefully!! Haven't lost a lawn mower...........yet!

I have from 4/1 to 2/1 slopes.

Sounds like either a push mower, or goats!!

Before the renovation I rode the 13hp 42" wide deck Craftsman mower into the water with the mowing deck running. You'd be suprised how many thoughts can go thru your mind in the time that it takes a mower to fall 4' to the water!! The next thing that I did after drying it out and getting it running was fix the brakes.

Very nice Brian.Did you ventilate the enclosure to prevent overheating?

Esshup,if you get a spare moment,my tractor could use some brakes too,or maybe that would take the thrill factor out of using it around the pond.

Tom G,
Thanks for the nice comments and no I haven't ventilated yet, but will be before next spring and summer. Figured I won't be running it that much all winter except for keeping an area open in the shallow end. And with cooler weather here, ALREADY, shouldn't heat up much this fall and winter.

Only thing I'm not sure of is whether to just put a couple vents in the sides or run a fan.

You will be amazed at how much heat is generated by those pumps! They almost last forever if you keepthem cool, but will cook themselves in a matter of days in close, unventilated quarters!

I used 4"x14" heating vents from Home Depot with a strip of screening material to keep bugs out. I also made some deflector sheilds on the inside of my cabinet to direct the flow into the fans and out of the body to increase motor cooling.

Looking at the professional vertex system at PBConIII, I was VERY impressed with the forced air cooling setup it had blowing on the compressor. I'd be thinking vents plus blower if I was you.

Thrill factor for TomG. Pucker factor for normal people!

It worked fine for most of the year until the I mis calculated the turning radius. As soon as the front wheels hit the down slope, I knew I was in for a ride.

a)I couldn't put a foot out to slow down because of the blades whirring in the deck.

b)Do I bail off now and stay dry, but maybe get chopped?

c)If I stay on, how far do I ride this thing into the water?

d)If I ride this thing into the water, what happens when it hits the bottom?

I opted for e) ride it down until the nose hits the water, then jump into the pond as far as I could.

It was about a 1:1 slope, and the water level was about 5' below where I was cutting. I ended up muddy and wet, but not sliced and diced. It took getting the truck and a long heavy tow strap to get it out. I pulled the sparkplug turned it over a few times, drained/refilled the oil & gas, took off the air filter blew it out with air & put in a new spark plug. After cranking for a bit it fired right up. The battery lasted the rest of the year as well.

Brian, All looks good but do consider venting sooner than later once your running for more than a few hours per day. Piston and vane compresors will exhaust off in the 195F-205F range but the trick is to keep the intake air at max 105F 125F.Even cracking the lid open for now would help. Although all of the compressors we supply have thermal overload protection I hate to rely on that function as a saftey net.On all of the Vertex cabinets I run a minimum of 140 cfm and a max of 580 cfm depending on cabinet size and number of pumps enclosed.

Ted, would you say it is more important to run cool air into the enclosure than to try and blow directly onto the compressor, or the other way around?

I prefer to pull outside air in (with the fan mounted opposite side of the louvered vents) across the compressor. As to not get weather elements pushing precip into the fan it is a good idea to exhaust it thru the bottom. Our "Installation" link off of our homepage shows several examples of this.This will also lower the fans sound level.A good rule of thumb in most cabinets is to use 290 cfm per dual piston compressor,single piston 140 cfm and 1/4 hp rotary vanes 140 cfm (290 better) and 3/4 hp 290 cfm and 1 hp 290 minimum (580 better)

I agree, heat and filter neglect is the worst enemy of these pumps. I'm not sure it makes a difference as far as the cooling, but we designed our single compressor (Thomas 2680) cabinet with the 4" fan blowing out from the inside and top (since hot air rises) through a luvre plate. Our intake is a filtered luvre plate on the opposite side and bottom (to bring cool air in and across the pump). This eliminates any concern about bringing in outside elements.

Thanks all for the cooling info. So far just opening the top of the enclosure as it's on hinges and completely flips up. But obviously not a long term solution especially when raining or snowing (that's a nasty word)!!! Will do some research into my best setup and look at some examples. So far this is my schedule: 15 min, 30 min, 1 hr, 1 1/2 hr. As per Ted not going to double down every day with the age of my pond. Probably here on out add 1 hr per day until shutting down the deep diffuser for winter.