Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? Replacing aerator hose and diffusers

My 3 acre pond has had an aeration system for about 7 years. It is now underperforming. The local vendor who originally installed the system is recommending replacing the hose and stones. He has quoted 925' of weighted hose at $1.75 per ft and 3 stones at $25 each. Does that sound reasonable?

Regardless of pricing, you should consider switching to rubber membrane diffusers. They put out smaller bubbles than stones and are more efficient at raising and circulating water.

I believe they are self cleaning as well.

Bubble hoses are good too.

10-4 on the membrane diffusers. Several forum members sell aeration products. I bought my replacement weighted hose from Nate Herman. http://hbpondmanagement.com/

As I recall he even paid shipping when I bought over 500 feet.

Bing

I can recomend this one
http://www.biosa.dk/England/products/waste%20and%20environment/bioreco/Biosa%20Reco%20oversigt.htm
PAUL

You can do much better than $1.75 per foot on the hose and better quality diffusers such as the membrane style. Check out Nate's website like Bing suggested ~ he has some good prices. How is your compressor holding up? It seems if the system is underperforming you may need to maintenance or replace the compressor.

Jim The stone can be cleaned with muratic acid (brick cleaning acid). Unscrew stones blow through them to check amount of clogging - resistance to air flow. Submerge stones in acid for an hour or two. Rinse clean and blow through them again to check how well they cleaned. Clean dry stones should have almost no resistance of air flow in blowing from your mouth.
As rotary compressors age, the vanes often get loose and wobbley in the rotor slots. Thus air pressure is lower. If so, replace vanes and pump should be as good as new.

Whay replace the hose? Is it leaking? If not no reason to replace it. Theo great recommendation. For most membrnae compressors you will need to get the device to mount them as well. It is easy to hookp to your hose and is self sinking by filling with rocks. Teh entire coactvie airstation is only $150. I agree with Sue if your compressor has not been maintainted it is underperforming as well.

check your airfilter, and either membranes or vanes which ever compressor it is could need replaced. what is the manufactorer?

Uh oh I'm going to play devils advocate here again. There is at least one time you should use stones over membrane diffusers. At least from my experience. That's when you're using one of those diaphragm compressors that pumps out less than 1 cfm.

I use two of them now on my two ponds that have fish for the winter for winterkill prevention, and I don't want or need a lot of flow. Just enough to keep some ice open. I change out my rotary vanes for the diaphragms in the winter now for that reason. It also saves on electricity use as the diaphragms use a less electricity than the rotary vanes due to fact that are much smaller in hp.

I find I don't get much air out of the membrane diffusers at less than 1 cfm. I also use only one stone.

In fact, I made the mistake of leaving a membrane diffuser on my airline in a pond this year when I changed out the rotary for a diaphragm. I couldn't get any air to come to the surface to speak of. It was a pain, but fortunately I had a rope connected to the end of the airline and once I pulled the airline up and changed out to a stone, I was able to pull it back under the ice with a rope from the other side of the pond. Always learning!