Pond Boss Forums AERATION Systems questions Water clarity around diffuser boil

MM - Detritus is fragments or particles of living or dead material sometimes called debris. This can range from silt, dead algae cells to wind blown stuff from outside the pond bascially anything that comprises solid particles in the water. In limnology (freshwater science) it is usually considered primarily dead organic material.

I have found the flat plate diffuser bases can be difficult to set properly on the bottom. The airline weight wants to pull and distort the proper vertical discent of the diffuser when lowering it from a boat. Sometimes weight on the under side of the diffuser can provice more ballast and help keep it upright. I have my own method for use in small ponds where we can pull the diffusers in from shore, however my method is not profesional looking. Maybe others have more experience with those type of diffusers in bigger ponds such as yours.

Yes, we can eliminate deep bottom muck as a cause for your water cloudiness in the upwelling boil. You are probably dealing with spring time sedimented particles maybe mostly very fine sediment-clay particles that have accumulated in a band at the thermocline. Your pond is fairly deep the clay-silt band may not have completely settled to the bottom. You are now pumping water up through the thermocline and lifting the sedimented particles back to the surface.

You have numerous options on how to deal with this. If it was my pond and since you are in OH, I would only run the diffusers 6 to 8 hours per day until the upwelling water runs clear. Or leave the diffusers off for a couple weeks and then restart them and see what the clarity looks like. I think you started running aeration too soon for typical OH standards. I tell most people to wait till the pond clears up (vis 5ft - 8ft) before running aeration, often this is in the second year. Otherwise, if you aerate too early in a new pond you get the problem you have now. Aeration keeps moving the water -sediment-clay suspensison and it has a hard time settling becase of the constant movement. If it is organic detritus particles then they will can decompose/rot in to basic elements while in suspension and in highly oxygenated conditons. Clay soil will not decompose. NOTE - cloudywater is not all that bad. It naturally reduces sunlight penetration and thus reduces a lot of bottom plant growth icluding filamentous algae and Chara with is a problem in new ponds.