I have a 6 acre piece of property with a 2 acre pond about 20 miles north of Gettysburg, PA that I have owned since 2015. Pond was built in 1967, about 60% surrounded by trees, fed from an underground natural spring and 2 dry creeks that fill with runoff from a farm next door during heavy rain. Max depth is 15ft. with an average depth of 8-10ft. Overflow for the pond is a 10in. drain pipe in the back that goes thru the pond wall into a creek. During the summer there are 25-50 geese calling it home and during the winter the population increases to 200+.
Never had watermeal until last year when we had torrential rains a few days after the farmer next door put down fertilizer for the corn. The dry creeks filled and all of the fertilizer flowed right into the pond. By the 3rd week of July the whole pond was covered in watermeal but we had no fish kill. Late Oct 2015 we started to manually skim the watermeal off and removed over 4k lbs of it.
This year the watermeal came back with a vengeance, covering the whole pond and resulting in 1000+ fish dying early Aug.
I am looking at installing the HQUA PAS20 Aeration sys with 2 diffusers. Pump will sit by the house about 125ft from the edge of the water. 1 diffuser will run about 275ft from the pump, the 2nd one 375ft.
Questions
1. Besides an aeration system is there anything else I should do? Would rather not apply chemicals unless its a last resort.
2. Is 275 and 375ft from the pump too far for the diffuser if placed at the deepest part of the pond?
3. Would aquatic plants be beneficial? Right now we have a few cattails and a very small section of reeds growing.
4. Does anyone have any reviews or experience with the HQUAPAS20 aeration system? Only place I found that sells it is Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MKJ71QR/ref=ox_sc_act_title_4?smid=A3RXGJ0Z4P3BMK&psc=1
