Pond Boss Forums AERATION Systems questions Bubble Tubing - Large Shallow Pond

Hi PondBoss community!

A friend of mine has a pond he would like to aerate. I always love DIY projects and agreed to help design it. I have learnt a ton today as I worked through this site but I am wanting to confirm some thoughts about this pond.

The pond is 2 acres in area at an average depth of 4' with the deepest being 6'. It is circular in shape with the diameter being ~275'. The pond is also located in Southern Alberta Canada. The owner plans to stock it with fish so it would be ideal if this design would help keep the fish alive through the winter.

I was hoping to stay away from bubble tubing but this seems like the most practical option for this application? If I used bubble tubing I would lay down 2-75' runs and use a Gast 1023-101Q Rotary Vane Air Pump to supply it. This pump is a lot more than I hoped but it seems like a flow rate of 8CFM+ is required.

I would appreciate any advise or recommendation to make this as efficient in both cost and performance as possible.

Thanks!
Mike

The pump will work well in this situation for 2 ac. The bubble tubing may not create enough surface activity and have inadequate boil flow to keep enough of the water open or any water open in your extra frigid Alberta winters. Bubble tubing traditionally results in gentle laminar flow of water. Melting thick ice in below -32C below 0C will require significant surface activity. For winter operation you might want to consolidate the air flow into a smaller sized (dia) bubble diffuser so it creates stronger water flow and surface disturbance. If you want to be on the safe side install a second style dual or triple head membrane diffuser 40-50 ft offshore and use it as a backup winter diffuser if the bubble tubing does not perform well during mid-winter.

I am very curious if the bubble tubing does the job to keep water open for you in your Alberta winters.

Thanks Bill,

I really like the idea of having a concentrated diffuser to ensure in winter months it stays open. I will plan to put this in the deepest known part of the pond.

The next thing is the ensure I get the right bubble tubing. Homedepot is offering 1/2" x 100' for $299 CAD. This says it works with their windmill, will it work with a pump operation as well? I can't see why not but it's alot of money to throw out there without knowing.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a supplier for aeration tubing in canada?

You can make your own aeration tubing by buying 1/2" clear vinyl tubing or use even decent grade garden hose and perforate it by hand or take it to a shoe repair shop and have them run it trough their heavy duty sewing machine. Try to get the holes 1/4" to 1/2" apart. Hand drilling a 1/32" or 1/16" hole every 1/2"-1" works okay in garden hose. Hook this up out of the water to your air compressor, cap the end, and measure the back pressure. It should be 0 which means you have enough holes to release all the air produced by the pump. IF the air gauge reads pressure add more holes until the air gauge reads 0. You will need to add weight to the hose to get it to sink. 3/8" re-rod, rebar, chain or cable all along the hose will keep it flat on the bottom.

In our shallow stations for the winter months I have 1/2" soaker hose. It is really a hose that is used for soaking plants or trees. Black in colour and is kinda like a sponge.

Works perfect for the shallow stations and keeps the water moving for the winter.

Just three hose clamps and a T to connect to the air line. Zip ties to some bricks that have the holes in them and drop her in.

I have some extra in the shop here and will shoot some pictures.

The drip tubing works good producing very small bubbles, however it does clog fairly quickly and easily. If you use it, I suggest that you hook the diffuser up to the pump with diffuser new and out of the water. Turn on the pump and read the pressure on the air gauge. This is your basic new hose diffuser pressure. Now you can monitor the amount of clogging by checking for increases of air pressure when ever the diffuser is out of the water. Depending on the type of compressor I would install new hose whenever the pressure increase is 2-4psi.

Bill, by drip tubing do you refer to the 'soaker' hose as posted above or true drip tubing for gardens - drip emitters every 12" or so?

I considered drip tubing and soaker hose the same thing. They could be significantly different. My comments were intended for the type of tubing that was the same as in the above picture.

Ya, there are 2 types of drip style hose/tubing that would provide different results.

The pond owner has some soaker hose lying around so assuming it is in good shape we will be using this. I will keep some records of the Pressure range for plugging indication in the future.

It appears like weighted air line in canada is pretty expensive ~$2/ft so I am most likely going to weight both the distribution line and the soaker hose. I require about 200' for the soaker hoses and the 'winter diffuser' would be on the far side of the pond so probably another 200'. 400' would cost around ~$800+tax... ouch

So, we finally had time to install the system. ?unfortunately my buddy didn't have as much rebar as I had hoped so only half of the line has been sung..... boy that was quite the dog and pony show installing off a paddle boat.

We fired on the unit and had some good looking aeration from the one hose which was actually on the bottom. Pics to come when it's completed.

The next thing is to provide him with tipps on starting the aeration, I have read somewhere that you should ease into it (a few hours a day). I need to find out if this applies even if the fish are not in the pond yet. If you have any good links send them along otherwise i will peruse the forum until I find relative info.

The problem would come when the pump kicks on after some time down it seems to want to over pressure until it evacuates all of the water from the line. As far as i see the best thing to do is play with the PSV I installed to try to allow enough back pressure to drain the line but still not over pressure the pump.


Thanks again everyone who commented.

If there are no fish present, or planned to be stocked in the first couple weeks, there is no need for a slow startup.

How old is the pond? A slow start is to prevent over-mixing oxygen poor, anoxic bottom waters with oxygen rich upper waters, but if the pond was freshly built, there should be little to no decay that would create hydrogen sulfides or other toxic issues.

If the pond is shallow enough to NOT have a thermocline set up, then I wouldn't be that concerned about start-up. Especially if there are no fish in the pond.