If you search through old posts on aeration I think you will find most if not all of the things you mention doing have been tried, maybe worked somewhat, then finally abandoned for things that work as advertised.

As long as you are working with zero cost stuff and your time is worth nothing other than the fun of experimenting you probably can learn some lessons others have already learned.

But as soon as you actually start to buy stuff, even bargain basement stuff, soon you will have enough money tied up in stuff that either doesn't work or works poorly, you would have been half way to buying something that is designed for the purpose and for certain will work. I'll try to find a link to one of my threads back when I was in the experimentation stage of aeration.

The reason you start up aeration slowly is that if the water is stratified, as it usually is in summer, the lower layer of water below the thermocline is not only anoxic, it also has built up gasses and compounds that can kill fish. Stir up this nasty stuff too quickly and you get a fish kill. So you want to bring it to the surface slowly in short bursts so it can dissapate slowly causing little or no harm. Once the initial mixing is complete, then you can operate the pump continously.

Last edited by snrub; 02/02/17 08:36 AM.
John

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