Pond Boss Forums AERATION Systems questions ice-free pond question

I have a 1/3 acre pond that is approx. 2 feet deep that I use for duck hunting. I have no power on the property. I am leaning towards a home made solar system. I can dig the pond deeper if it would help my situation. Need to run the system only during hunting season (Nov. and Dec.) for close to 24 hours/day to keep from freezing. Can some help me out with a efficient cost effective system. thanks Damon

Damon:

Maybe all the duck hunters would know this intuitively; I don't and some of the aeration experts (which I am not) might not either.

You want to keep as much of the pond as you can, all if possible, ice-free. Is that right?

Theo,

Good question. Damon, I am not a duck hunter so I do not know the habits of ducks. We can keep most of the ice off but it depends on what size compressor and how much cfm would be required.

If a landing strip is all that is needed with a circle at the end, we can achieve that by using a new slotted tubing on the market with a watergarden diffuser at the end.

Hi Damon -
I kept in contact over the winter with a couple of duck hunters/ waterfowl enthusiests who had installed aeration systems last fall. Both had a great winter with large areas of open water even in subzero temperatures. One of the locations had no electricty so he would start up the system with a generator. It took under 2 hours to deice his pond and he said the 'greenheads' flying by immediately saw the open water. The other had electricity about 2000 feet from the pond and ran 1" PVC from the compressor to the pond. These ponds were deeper than 2 feet, though. I think if you can you should make it a little deeper to help prevent the entire water column from freezing. Canadian Pond Products has a lot of products you may be interested in (solar, bubble tubing, etc) and of course they have a lot of experience with winter aeration. www.canadianponds.ca

Here is a photo of one of our systems in Wisconsin with the temperature at -5 for a week.

Thanks for the replies. I would like to set up a solar panel with a battery backup system. Not sure if I should use a bubbler, diffuser or an air line. I don't know what an air line does but I have read about them on this site. My pond is probably 75 yards long 15 yards wide and will probably dig it 4 -5 ft. deep. What would be the best set up keeping price in mind. I would like to go solar because they seem relatively maintenance free. What size solar panel do I need, what size pump or diffuser or what ever would be best. Still learning all the language. Any help would be great. Damon

Cary, I like your idea. Could it be done with solar and battery backup? Damon

Damon,

It can be done with solar, we just need to use the appropriate DC Pump that will produce enough CFM and pressure. I will research it for you and get back with the compressor type and model number. As for the solar panels, I do not have any experience with those, but I have a customer who does and I will get with him on suggested panels and batteries.

Damon: I put in a windmill (Koender from Canadian Pond; see Sue Cruz' post above for link) last year and it kept an opening in my pond through this past winter. On some extremely cold and still nights (below -25C or -13F), the opening would ice over, but it disappeared quickly when wind started the aerator again. My aerator is ~6-8' below the surface though, and I would wonder if a 2' depth would give you sufficient spread of bubbles to keep much of an opening free of ice. (I posted a picture of my open hole in winter on another thread here on this BBS.) Ducks enjoyed the opening during the early part of winter and other wildlife seemed happy to have access to fresh water during the coldest parts of winter.

Eric:

I moved my Koenders' output from 7' to (2' to 3') depth this last Winter for the first time (do a search for "supercooling"). It still had plenty of lift to keep the ice off, although the hole was perhaps 2/3 the size of what it would have been in deeper water.

Cary

I am interested in the solar system also. Thanks

Frank

Interesting information about supercooling Theo. This veers off the thread a bit, but I'm about to modify my pond to be able to place heat exchange coils for a geothermal heat pump into the pond. Since the heat exchanger will work better with water at warmer temperatures, I should probably plan to move the aerator up in the winter too, and help avoid having the cold top water mix with the warmer lower water.

Frank,

Still researching compressor options...I have several customers intrested in this. Obviously I need to work on this. As soon as I get my samples in, I will be testing them right away to get this product on line.

Cary

Thanks. I look forward to your research. Do you have any idea how many batteries will be required?

Frank