Hello,
Our pond’s aerator compressor died last year. It was a Sweetwater AC-9 1HP compressor that fed four aerator plates in the pond. Each aerator plate has six 9-inch long diffuser stones (per photo). Pond is in lower New York, 3acre surface, with max depth of 9ft. This works out to about 14acre-feet (4.2million gallons) of volume. See contour and layout map, with aerator plates labeled A,B,C,D, for reference. This system was donated to us and we had no aeration system before it. Using Pumping Rates of Diffuser Aeration Systems from this site (
https://www.thepondreport.com/aeration-sotr-sae-pumping-rates.shtml#.ZAF9uHbMJPY), I calculated a turnover/mix rate with this system of about 10hours. We have had a lot of bluegreen algae issues and the County Dept of Health has suggested increasing the aeration to help reduce this issue (along with other measures).
Couple of questions:
1. We have 1-phase/240V/30amp circuit to the cabinet, so we have plenty of capacity to replace this one compressor with two of the same. But, should I try to find one 2HP aerator (which I can’t seem to find one), or go with the modest redundancy that two separate 1HP units provides?
2. Any recommendations to changes for placement of aerator plates in the pond as shown?
3. With two 1HP compressors, should I add another two aerator plates to have six plates in total (supplying 3 plates from each compressor)? Or should I just keep the four as-is and supply two aerator plates from each compressor?
Your advice is greatly appreciated.
Thank you
Anthony
Link to photos:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/x7GVD3tbLDaBDAm38
