Pond Boss Forums AERATION Systems questions To pump or not to pump

I am an HOA president responsible for the maintenance of three ponds, upper, middle and lower that are fed by a pump out of a larger lake and flow down one to the other and ultimately back into the lake. The ponds do get some rainwater runoff from upstream in a good storm, but other than that all movement is from the pump. The upper pond is about 6,000 square feet, the middle about 35K, the lower about 10K. They are roughly 3-4 deep on average.

The pump we have now is a big mondo one like the ones they use in water or sewage treatment plants. Over the past two year it continually experiences various difficulties and uses one heck of a lot of electricity. We've had the plumbing firm, which is owned by a board member, out four times last year and twice this year already The pump is shut off for the winter months.

My question is this: for the health of the ponds, could I go to much more reasonably priced and energy-saving bubblers rather than the big pump? That would mean that the water would simply be recirculated inside each pond, not getting refreshed except for rainfall. Am I asking for trouble here?

Mik, yes aerating the existing water vs constantly replacing your water would provide better and more economical pond health.Depending on the layout of the ponds you may be able to aerate all three with one system with a maximum of 1 hp.If you would care to provide your location we can do an aerial map and size you a system to properly aerate all three.This is a free service provided to everyone with no obligation.

Thanks, Ted! I will go out to the county website and get it for you.

I just took over these duties last summer and so am learning a lot more about ponds than I ever thought I would.

The 80 acre lake that feeds these ponds take a lot of silt from the upstream watershed, and was dry dredged the year before (a big mistake) and instead of reducing vegetation as promised they stirred up hugely fertile bottom silt. We had bad primrose and duckweed in one pond, horrible algae in the other, curiously nothing at all in the upper pond and a pump that was out of order half the time. We contracted with a local firm to treat the ponds regularly with chemicals which I would prefer to avoid if possible. We're a huge PUD and I'm trying to build support for branding us as a green community and get sailing going on the lake again.

This forum is proving to be an invaluable resource. Thanks.