What are the advantages and disadvantages of intermittent aeration. Right now I am only at the pond a few days a week. So I run the aeration several hours a day while I am there.
I'm new enough to aeration to be dangerous, but I would be concerned that periodic (or intermittent) aeration would lead to the accidental "turn-over" of the pond. e.g. If the lower water column loses it's O2, like lower water tends to do, and then you turn on a aerator and bring it up and mix it in, now you have a lowered O2 state which could lead to a fish kill.
Another newbie thought on the disadvantages would be...intermittent aeration would be like always starting the system up from near scratch. I would be afraid to show up on Saturday an just turn the system on for 4 hours which would lead me to 15-30 minutes on Saturday, 30-60 minutes on Sunday and then off for the week until my next visit. This would be less risky than several hours a day, but would it really be doing much? I would bet that 4-5 days without aeration would lead to a stale lower water column and followed by a couple days of aeration would lessen the quality of the upper water column. Seems to lack stability to me.
