Pond Boss Forums AERATION Should I aerate? Winter Aireation in the South

I live in North Alabama and have a 1 acre pond ranging from 3-12 feet deep. Should I run my aireator in the winter. I've seen alot of post talking about winter aireation up north, what about down south. I did run it this winter and I have largemouth with red upper lips. This got me to searching the forums and if I understand correctly I should have turned off the aireators?

I'm guessing turn them off in November?

It is slowly warming up here should I go ahead and keep them running now or turn them off for awhile? Again, I am in north Alabama

Thanks!

AW,
I have a 1.5 acre pond in Coastal South Carolina. I have been aeration for two years. During the warm months I aerate breifly during the daytime and then aerate all night. During the cold months I aerate briefly around mid day or so. I will also increase the duration of aeration on those days that are warmer than normal (durning cold months) and days that are cooler than normal (during warm months). I try to use this to somewhat buffer the temperature extremes in addition to increasing oxygen availibility. Seem to work pretty well for me. Any of you Pros have any feedback on this plan?

Sarc

Sarc, What kind of aeration are you using,(fountain,splasher, bottom diffused with what type and how many diffusers?)What is you ave depth? I see in some of your past posts that a fountain was going to be used, Also are you fertilizing for a bloom and lastly what fish and how many did you stock in your 3 year old pond? You have a great question but some back ground is needed,Ted

I am aerating with a bottom diffusion system. It uses 2 bottom diffusers (similar to the Vertex ones) and a 1/4 hp air pump. The average depth of my pond is probably 4-5 feet, but the diffusers are located in the two deepest holes (around8-10 feet). The pond is located adjacent to a wetland area so I have almost no flucuation in water level.
I eventially changed my mind about the fountain because it really wasn't very efficient and didn't really fit in well with the rustic surroundings of the pond.
As far as stocking goes, I stocked 1500 bream(BG and RE), 130 LMB, and 150 Channel cats.
I lime as needed and fertilize 8-9 months out of the year. I also have a feeder which I run once or twice daily for 9 months out of the year.

Thanks for the response,
Sarc

Sarc, Ill give you some hard numbers and some soft ones and you can check with the diffusers supplier for an exact number on gallons of turnover per cfm at your depth. I will assume that your pump is supplying at least 1.5 CFM at the diffuser times 2,plus minimum line loss if a piston pump or a rotary vane.Not knowing your diffusers I will use 1200 gallon per minute turnover if they are not round airstones and you indicate they are not. The math is as follows, 1.5 acre tank 5 ft average brings you to approx 2.5 million gallon/ So you have 1.73 million gallons of turn if you have two diffusers on a single stand or 3.46 million gallon of turn if you have two diffusers each on two stands. Im not sure if when you say 2 diffusers you mean 1 or 2 stands.A 1/4 hp pump (guessing 3-4 cfm) is a lot of air for one diffuser in one spot so hope that is not the case.So 1 stand of two diffusers would give you .692 turns and two sets would be 1.38 turns. Your demand for DO will only increase as your pond matures. I would not want less than "ONE" turn per day to stay in that 70-80 % saturation range, So you are probably not aerating enough with two (stands) diffusers and I would run more.(try 18 hr per day ) And if one stand of two diffussers you are comig up very short. If you want some exact figures see what the cfm output is or tell me the pump brand and diffuser brand and size and I probably have all that info here.When you aerate less when its hot the water will stay somewhat cooler and the DO content will be higher if you can get the cooler water aerated. Since you need to get that cooler water to the pond surface to get it aerated increased temp is the price you pay (not all bad with your fish type) The better news is that you may get some good o2 from your pond being the depth that it is from algae and any rooted plants. Normally the o2 the plants and algae give during the day is consumed at night. The fish are competing with the algae,plants and the decomp process which requires DO 24/7. (thus your pond needing more DO as it ages)86 F water is about 7.5 ppm DO (guessing without your sealevel,salinity etc but real close for this example)70% saturation is only 5.25 PPM DO so not a great number.Lets say you keep the water 10 degrees cooler by not aerating (thats extreme)as much and using the same % saturation you would only gain .66 ppm DO or 5.88 ppm DO.If you were 90% saturated at 86F you would find about 6.8 ppm DO (much better) A level of 7 ppm DO would be great.Try doing a "google search" and type in dissolved oxygen fish and read some of the articles. You are headed the right direction ,The Annis Water Resources Institute has a great one. Let me know if you cant find it,Ted

Just getting back to you Ted. BTW, I didn't mean to steal this thread from you Alabama_Woody, I hope you don't mind..
I am using a Gast Rotary Vane pump which is 1/3 HP ( I was going to get the 1/4 HP but it wasn't availible...sorry about the confusion).
Best as I can tell, the diffusers are membrane type diffusers approximately 10.5 inches in diameter. I am using a total of two diffusers at separate locations in the pond. One is at the deepest 'hole' in the pond ~9'. The other is in a deep channel at ~6'-7'.
I would run the aerator the majority of the day during the warm months primarily to boost the DO. My thinking during the cooler months was to cycle it less during the cold days in order to keep some stratification of the pond so that there is warmer water at the surface ( from sunlight). My thinking was this might encourage slightly more feeding with the slightly warmer temps. During these cooler days, I didn't feel that DO was as important since the DO is greater with cooler water. I will however increase the aeration during the days where the ambient temperature is equal or greater than my pond temperature.
I constantly measure and record the temps with a wireless weather station and an additional temperature probe which is located under my floating dock (and always shaded) at 2' water depth.
I do not know for sure if this is the best approach ( I suppose I could invest in a DO meter... but those puppies are quite pricey), but this is at least my thinking. I truely appreciate you input and defer to your greater experince with pond aeration.
Hope this help to clarify things. Looking forward to the continuation of this tread!

PS I have almost a years worth of data so far relating the ambient temp to my ponds temp (at 2' depth). If I can figure a good way to export the data or graphs I will happily do so if anyone is interested.

Sarc

Sarc, You have a very good pump as the Gast 0523 is the "flagship compressor" of waters less than 16 ft.Your diffusers are a question as far as turnover but are perhaps an EDI model with 1 mm I slits and receiving approx 2 cfm each and your pressue guage should always read in the 5-7 lb range. A guess at a turnover rate would be just that. Also always tough to know how much credit to give to wind action and normal mixing from temp swings.Lets just say I believe there is more room to error on the side of running them too little as compared to too often. Look into a YSI DO meter sometime and I think you would enjoy the information you would get from it on a year round basis. Let me know if you have the 3/4 inch blue BRADY check valves in your lines and I may have a tip on how to improve your air supply considerably.Ted

Gentlemen, this is all very interesting, but what about Woody's question? I,too, am new to pond ownership, but would like to revamp mine and am looking for the basics. Any info abt volume of water turned with aeration,in laymans terms? Is there any advantage to cycling water and injecting a measured amount of air? tnx jb

A Woody, What did you find out on the LMB with red upper lips? What can you tell me about your pond? Water source, age, what is your approx fish load, plants available, grass carp, chemical program? Pond surface picks up some wind, or is it very blocked.What can you tell me about your aeration system? diffusers are in what depth and are airstones for example,and the pump supplies what cfm?Not trying to over question but these are some of the items needed to answer your questions.Some of your answers may be in the post to Sarc.In the meantime turn the system on at least all night and post some facts on your situation and I'll will qualify some of your questions. Your questions are very good and it takes some information to answer you accurately. Even with all of the above information there will always be variables that we can discuss.Sorry no one directly answered your post from 2-15-05 Ted

burgermeister, What would you like to know about volume of water turned with aeration. What do you mean about "revamp"? What does water cycling mean and if you will explain the air injection part of your question I will try to give you some answers. Any additional type of info (for example that Sarc provided about his situation and A Woody was asked), about your pond will help answer your questions.Thanks Ted