idaho pond, just wanted to say welcome to pondboss, and state "what a beautiful place you have!!" great pics, really nice bow there.
FWIW, i have really become a fan of bottom diffused aeration for my situation. running it at nights only during the summer costs me ~$15-20/month, the system i have cost ~$2k.
no matter what system you choose, you'l need to be a might careful of aerating during the day in the summer if you get high daytime temps.....those beautiful trout wouldnt want the water to get above 65 degrees, and would probably start dying on you if water got to over 70 degrees.
Thanks! That "bow" photo is a couple years old we have some much bigger now but as I mentioned our winters are hard on them and I lose several (around 50) each year. I am not going to put any more in this year. We also have 4 big (4 foot) Sturgeon but I very rarely see them. From the research I have done, it sounds like aeration will cut down on the winter fish kill. I need to decide between spending the money to run power and an electric system of a windmill system. I may end up just getting one windmill system which would be under $3,000 for a 24' tower with a 70" fan. Hard to decide.
I have read that one needs to be careful aerating during hot summer days. I will need to watch that. It is uncommon that we get many days over 85-90 but maybe that would be enough to over heat - the pond does hold a lot of water so I would think it would take a considerable amount of heat to get the overal water temp to 70 degrees but I guess it would be possible?
