AP --
Those are some excellent pictures -- love the tiger trout! Wish I had a local supplier down here in Virginia.
That's a neat idea using a soaker hose as an air diffuser line. It looks very effective.
I run aeration 24/7 from early spring through late fall. My pond is spring-fed and the water emerges from the ground at about 54 degrees, but with just about zero dissolved oxygen. Another factor in my pond is the vegetation -- chara covers about 80% of the pond. I'm sure the DO levels in the pond probably approach super-saturation on some bright sunny days. But when the process reverses at night, the trout need all the O2 the aeration system can provide.
I have mostly rainbows in my pond (a few brooks, too, right now). They have summered through successfully since 2003.
I used to take a lot of temperature readings for my trout, but eventually quit. Thermal stress -- mine, not the trouts'.
From late June or early July through about the first week of September, the trout stay clustered either by the spring inlet or in a deep weed-free area (where I suspect some cold spring water wells up). I don't feed during the summer; but most of the trout must do some limited foraging because they wind up in pretty decent shape when fishing resumes in mid- to late October.
If I may ask a couple of dumb questions: when you say the thermostat turns on at 66 degrees -- is that 66 degrees the air or water temperature? Also, is that when it rises or drops to 66? (Sorry for being slow to grasp things).
Anyway, I really appreciate your post -- and, again, those are really excellent pictures. -- Mike Smith, Lexington, Virginia
