Pond Boss Forums AERATION Systems questions Areation Side Effect

In August 2009 I had what I thought was an oxygen problem. I am confident that the pond flipped but I don't think that it had the devistation affect that I thought it had. Before the pond flipped, I had pretty green water with good visibility. I can't give you a scientific measurement of the color and clarity but I can just say that it was pretty and looked really nice.

After the pond flipped, I installed an areation system. My pond is 1.25 acres and is 2 years old now. From August 2009 until recently the areator ran 24/7. I have 2 difussers that are placed at either end at the deepest part of the pond which is around 7-8 feet.

Anyway, the entire time I had the areation system going the water was a murky brown color and I was unable to catch any fish. I started looking real close and I could see that the water was the most cloudy around the air plume. There was actually distinct circle about 10-15 feet from where the air plume came up so I knew it was the areator that was causing this.

2 weeks ago I turned off the areation system and now my pond is back to its old self. My water is green and now when I throw food I see my BG, HBG and Tilapia feeding. Yesterday, I caught 5 LMB in about 30 minutes. I have never done this and when my water was murky I completly stopped catching any bass.

So now I have to figure out what to do. I definately want to have some element of areation but I want to do so in a manner that won't keep the pond stirred up so I'll ask the good folks of Pond Boss on what I should do:

Question 1. What are some ideas for an inexpensive but effective deflection shield that I can put the diffusers on? I would have no issue with somehow elevating the difussers from the bottom of the pond 1-2 feet.

Question 2. What if I put a timer on the areator so that it only ran 2 hours per day around midnight every night? Is this enough? If I got a really cold rain one morning and the areator didn't start for 18 hours would it be too late to be effective?

Thanks for any and all advice!

I've heard of people attaching them to a milk crate to keep them up off of the bottom, and I've a single diffuser attached to a 2' x 3' piece of plastic sheet that was roughly 3/16" to 1/4" thick to help stop the mud from getting stirred up.

What type of stations do you currently have, How much lift is this system providing 5000 GPM for example or 1 turn per 24 hours?