Hello All - I am a new member of the community after spending the past day reading some of the valuable information here.
I have a small pond that's about 1/8th acre. It was designed as a "integrated" pond, which basically is a stormwater pond that has been landsaped into the yard. It looks like what you would see at a golf course. While its technically a stormwater retention pond, its design is limited to runoff from a private (gated) street of 7 homes. Most of the inlet comes from the rooftop drains of the 7 homes. I do have an inlet control valve that allows me to open and close the inlet. When closed, the runoff bypasses the pond and comes out at the outlet end where the pond has a swale leading to a stream.
I also have a well that's dedicated to irrigation, and I did tie a zone to the pond.
The first question - Should I typically keep the inlet control open for water to flow in and out, or closed up?
I installed an Otterbine Surface Fountain about 5 years ago, after developing a bad algae problem at the time (the pond was built new with the house 6 years ago). The otterbine quickly made a dent, and it got a bit better each year.
Im now at the point where the fountain is keeping the top clean, but the inlet area, and sections of the bottom have a LOT of sludge. The pond is about 7 feet at the deepest point.
I want to put bottom aeration, but I want to make sure it will make sense with a surface aerator, and also can I use a smaller system since I already have surface aeration? I was looking at a 1/3 Piston system that seems like it would be loud. Is that overkill for my setup? Does anyone have any recommendations?
Thanks,
Ken
