Many thanks for that info Bill. That gives me a starting point and some direction. You are such a great resource for this forum!
Your reply and the great explanation about the oxygen demand leads me into my second question.
I have heard it stated numerous times on this forum if running the aeration system less than 24/7, run it at night time rather than day. I have heard it stated, turn on the aeration from midnight to sun up or something similar. Dependent on the capacity to turn the water the duration of the "on" time.
This seems backward and counter-intuitive to me.
Let me state what I "think" I know and how it would seem to me would be a better way to operate, then you (or anyone else) can tell me where my thinking is wrong (which is a high probability).
During daylight the upper layer of water gets super saturated (on a sunny day) with O2 by algae production. At night the opposite happens. So why would a person want to bring up lower level water (lower in O2 to begin with) to the upper level where O2 is also dropping? I understand the water/air interface is adding O2 to low DO water. But would you not want to bring low O2 water up during a period of maximum O2 production rather than at night when only the air/water interface can add O2?
It seems to me it would be better (from strictly an O2 standpoint - lets leave summer water warming out of this for the time being) to circulate super O2 saturated water from mid afternoon to the lower level thereby creating an "O2 sink" of good deep water to hold the levels over night till morning. It seems to me a person would be wanting to move water to different levels during the day where algae has the chance to produce the most O2 over the maximum number of hours.
I hope I explained that well enough for what I am saying to be understood. It looks like to me a person, to maximize O2 production and retention, would want to run the aeration during the day rather than during the night. Why not run the air from say 8am to 2pm or from 10am to 5pm rather than at night?
If someone wants to bring up BOW heating during summer (I know Texas guys are concerned with this) lets discuss that as a third separate from DO question.
