Pond Boss Forums AERATION Systems questions 8 acre pond at 10,000' - lots of aeration ?s

Canyon - at the bottom I attached a graph that shows this year to the last couple years plus "normal" and average. This year CRUSHED 2017 and 2017 was a big year. We have a large spillway and normally spill a lot of water in the Spring and for a big chunk of the Summer. (We have NEVER spilled water with the water fully mixed though and we think this will make a substantial change!!!) Last year, worst drought on record, was the first year I have ever seen the water level drop. We have estimated that on a normal year I have enough run off from snow to completely fill the pond 2-3 times over. This year is ~1.5 times or more normal.

We are still not 100% sure if the lines froze up this year or not. We know for sure the 1/2HP pump does not make the "plume intensity" needed to get through thick ice and massive snow. This year we plan on building a Winter only diffuser set up that is (rough draft) 4 Vertex heads and 2 heads that make larger bubbles for 6 total heads. We are going to feed that with a 1" airline that is direct connected to the main 1" airline. This will prevent any turns, restrictions, etc that gives the condensation any place at all to collect. We are also going to place this setup in shallower water than before. Not sure how shallow yet. Our base goal is to keep a hole open PERIOD. We think this new design (thanks in big part to MNFISH) is our best shot. If it fails again, I will be building a small dock and putting the compressor right out on top of the water with airlines going literally straight down to deeper water. I think that is bulletproof answer and has been proven by MNFISH to work, but I am trying to make that last resort.

I am also installing an axial flux wind turbine to the system this Summer. I will be removing the American Eagle windmill compressor, throwing it in the lake for fish structure and using it's tower for the new turbine. In addition to substantial extra power the wind turbine gives me an excellent opportunity to "divert" excess power to some chosen load. The load I am going to use is a second air pump. This second air pump is only going to run out side of the solar hours when there is excess power from the turbine and the solar pump is not running. This could possibly double my aeration run time especially in the Winter. That would keep DO up, make it harder for the hole in the ice to close up/get snowed over AND allow less time for any condensation in the line to freeze up.

We will see how it goes.