Pond Boss Forums AERATION Should I aerate? 12 hour run?

I have been running my areator 24-7 for the last couple of weeks.My wife wants to know if we could cut the run time down due to cost of electrcity? I don't personaly look at cost when it comes to the pond I guess thats why shes in charge of the bills and I am not. I have 1/2 acre pond, 16' deep and areate with a gast 1/3 hp compressor.If I were to cut the run time in half should I run it at night or during the day? Any input would be appreciated.

I'd ask the wife if she knows how much cost it is to replace the fish, then compare it to the cost of the extra 12 hours of run time each day.

Run it 24/7

The only problem with that is, I've never paid for a fish to put into the pond. I've got bg,lmb,cc,yp,and bc.I fish all the time and just throw them into the pond. I wish she would llok at things like I do

Low O2 will most likely occur late night and early AM after the vegetation and algae bloom has used oxygen. IT will produce O2 during the day IF there is sun. If cloudy and cool run it during the day. If in doubt, run it midnight til 8AM and 4 hrs during the day. Running it 12 hrs. should save you about $15 per month. It's unlikely you will have 85-90 degree water up there. If you have a high density of fish and/or a mucky pond to clean up............24/7 baby.

Or, you could use the approach that you need to run it 24/7 or buy a $600 O2 meter for monitoring purposes.

Ok, the pond is 2 years old just to let you know, there is some plantlife but, everything looks great. The pond is spring fed and there is always water comeing in on the one end of the pond and going out on the other. It seems to keep the top of the pond clear from leaves,pellets,ect..I use aqua shade once in the spring and once in the fall also.

Kristoffer,

The spring water may and may not help. Sometimes spring water has low DO.

Aquashade can delay DO from rebounding quickly in the AM hours.

very interesting,never knew that.Thanks.

Timely post! My rotary vane compressor stated it uses 4.2 amps I am also using an over sized blower fan with unknown electric consumption. I have no idea what my electric bill is going to do. I hope it is comparable to running and air-condition unit . If it is real high I will have to switch to a dusk to dawn run time. I have been running 24x7 for 15 days and the pond has never looked better!

In order to save $$, I'd reconsider the dusk to dawn theory.

Usually right at dusk you have some residual O2 from photosynthesis in your bank account. Good photosynthesis doesn't really crank up until about 1-2 hours after sunrise depending on cloud cover. Maybe a better pattern, if your heck-bent on saving money would be midnight to around 8 a.m.

I run a pretty sophisticated O2 meter on my pond, that can transmit data by cellphone to a base unit, and it tells me that 12 a.m. to 8 a.m. is my best bang for the buck.

Keep in mind also that 12-8 are the coolest hours of the day, so by mixing water when the air temps are cooler you are keeping the net temp in your pond a little lower, and this lower water temp holds a little more oxygen.

Kristoffer,

Here are two links for your review that may help address your question. In the first post, have a look see at Cody's post. Good info.

http://www.pondboss.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=11;t=000055

As a reference, I posted another link to a Cody post.

http://www.pondboss.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=12;t=000013