Pond Boss Forums AERATION Systems questions DIY pond aerator help

Do some searching on here for RC51. He did a DIY system.

If your pond freezes over, be prepared to either move the diffuser from the deepest point in the pond to around 3' deep for the winter, or put in a remote valve box and have winter and summer diffusers.

For a circular pond that is 12' deep and one acre in size, that $2500 price tag sounds high, and I'm a Vertex dealer. A simple system for a pond that size with 3 diffusers and 150' of bottom line tubing should be closer to 2/3 that price (minus shipping)

Just like building a motor, you have to get parts/pieces that work with each other. No sense throwing on Edelbrock Performer Intake mated to a 950 cfm Ultra XP carb, a high lift roller cam and a 5500 rpm stall converter.

Just like you have to research parts to go together, you have to research compressors and diffusers. If the place where you are buying the parts from cannot tell you the specs on those parts, and you cannot find the specs on those particular parts somewhere on-line, move on to a supplier that can tell you that information.

How many cfm does the pump put out at what psi? How many cfm does the diffuser need to work at what psi? More importantly, how many gpm does the diffuser move at the installed depth?

To correctly design the system, you need to know how many gallons of water are in your pond, and design the system so it turns the pond over at least once per day. i.e. brings the total pond volume of water to the surface once per day (during the summer).

Make sure the air line that you use is long enough and big enough I.D. for the application too. 1/2" I.D. (or 5/8" I.D.) is the most common. Self Sink tubing for in the pond is recommended.

For winter aeration, have the diffuser in 1/4 to 1/3 the total pond depth, close enough to shore to allow anything that might go in the water to get footing on the pond bottom and crawl out of the pond without having to crawl up on the ice if at all possible. You want to keep 10% or so of the pond surface area open in the winter.

You can build it yourself.

Take a large underground sprinkler box, the one with the removable top, usually plastic. Airline from compressor goes in, you make a manifold with ball valves going to each diffuser. Turn on or off each diffuser there. If you want to get fancy, you can put in a "T" to add a low pressure gauge for each diffuser to monitor their performance. Typically 0-30 psi range.

Box is sunk into the ground with the top flush with the top of the ground so you can mow over it.

An image I grabbed from the internet. If I were to make my own, I'd make it from plastic and have brass ball valves.

If you are going to divert all the air from deep summer diffusers to a single shallow winter diffuser, you may want to install a tee and bleed-off valve in the winter air circuit. Doing so will prevent damaging your shallow diffuser.

If you are going to divert all the air from deep summer diffusers to a single shallow winter diffuser, you may want to install a tee and bleed-off valve in the winter air circuit. Doing so will prevent damaging your shallow diffuser.