Pond Boss Forums AERATION Systems questions Daytime aeration question

When I installed the aeration in my pond, it was in the heat of summer and my pond surface temp was teetering on 100*, so I immediately went to running strictly in the early morning to bring those temps down. This is the first time I've ran it during the day and am currently running 8 hours, from 10am to 6pm.

Today I took temp readings to check my variance from top to bottom. 3 readings, surface, 6 feet and 11 feet and found less than 2 degrees difference top to bottom, 67 on top, 65 at depth. That being said, I'm very confident that I'm getting complete DO saturation throughout.

Here's the dilemma... if I continue to run on this schedule, I'm eventually going to super heat the pond when it does get hot, so today I've cut the cycle down to 4 hours, which is still giving me better than 1 full turnover cycle.

Am I better off adjusting the run time to later in the day, or keep it on a mid day schedule? Stay at 4 hours or go back to 8?

My plan is to switch to night runs once the surface stays 80*f, but I want to try to avoid such tight variances, and still maintain a good DO saturation.

Need some insight from you more experienced pond meisters...please.

I am at the same place as you with the exception that you will warm up sooner than I due to your warmer climate. And, I am at the same experience level as you with regards to aeration in the pond. My intentions are to maximize my air run times while avoiding any overheating of the waters. I will be bumping my runtimes up as the summer comes on until I hit 24 hours runtime or the water gets to that 80 degree mark. Once I hit 80 degrees, I plan to start to shift my runtimes towards nighttime only. I suspect that I will hit the 24 hour mark and eventually I will start cutting the hours out of the hottest part of the day until I get to the heat of summer and by then I will be only running from 9pm to 9am (or thereabouts).

I think making minor adjustments is best so that the fish are more likely to feed regularly, but last year the heat came on quick and I switched to nighttime rather abruptly...the fish slacked off feeding for several days.

I would think that you could pick a runtime amount (somewhere between 4 to 8 hours) then as summer comes on, start moving the runtimes backwards by an hour at a time until you are aerating during the cooler temps (nights).

Right now, I have been running my air during the warmest part of the day to speed up the warming of the water, but once the air temps get warmer than 80 or so, I will start cutting those hours off. You could simply start bumping your hours away from the hot times of the day.

That's my strategy...right, wrong or indifferent.

Running during the warmest hours now was my thought as well, but it has actually reduced my temps since I started the pump back up. Thats why I thought cutting back on run time might be best with cooler temps (more DO capacity). I'm not feeding at the moment so the bigger fish are forced to feed naturally on all the fry I already have, knowing that number is only going to explode soon. If I do feed, itll be the larva I'm raising.

My main concerns are the tight variance in temps, but I want to keep as much DO going as well to keep algae blooms to a minimum.

I dont plan on running 24/7, because I'm already turning the pond over almost 3 times a day on 8 hours. 9 hours would be my max.

I guess I'll stay on 8 hours for now, then start to adjust to later runs until I get to my permanent night schedule as the surface temp rises.

Thanks for you opinion QA

Mike, I try to run my aeration 24/7, year round, unless temps are going to be above 80* then adjust accordingly. Summer schedule is on a week to week basis. On a hot week, I'll set the timer to turn off from around 10am to 8pm for that week.

Wisconsin summers can go weeks maybe hitting 80*, I know your area is different, but perhaps the same thinking is good, unless you nighttime temps are in the 80s too. In that case I would consider only running diffusers in the shallower areas for the hot weeks.