Alright now, here's a new one for everybody. This winter I plan on opening a new thread, which I'll leave a mystery for now, but I think there will be lots of interest in. However, in order to adequately prep myself I'm going to need to ask a couple of different questions.
I happen to think that a pond of about 4,000 square feet in size, and an average depth of 5 feet, with a maximum depth of 12-15 feet is a very interesting size pond to study. To me this size pond is intrigueing because it's a size large enough to support two or three species, in a somewhat natural interaction, but be small enough to be fairly inexpensive to build and can be drained as a management tool.
Two of my ponds meet this criteria. One of them has had a couple of days of serious oxygen deficits during the very heat of the summer. Once I was aerating and pumping in water at a fairly high rate. A dieoff of micro and macrophytic life still overwhelmed my airlift's ability to provide O2. The other time I had a couple of calm nights, combined with an algae crash and I lost fish as well. Each time the well water was being infused at about 12 gpm and was being sprayed under pressure at concrete blocks through 2.5 gpm sweeper nozzles.
Now here's where I think it gets interesting. When my O2 started to plummet early this August I tried something new, that worked incredibly well. I bought a new, bigger nozzle that delivers 8 gpm but instead of spraying it over concrete blocks, I supported to nozzle horizontally about four inches under the surface. My pressure tank on my well was at about 50 psi. An amazing result was that the water in my 4,000 s.f. pond began to swirl around the pond. The DO levels immediately went through the roof! I had been measuring levels that varied from a high of 6.5 ppm in the afternoon to 2.5 ppm at night (sometimes lower). After changing to a circulating system the DO went from 7.8 in the afternoon but never dropped below 4.5 at night. To a fish grower this is a huge difference!
Now to non fish growers I present the following theory. Kasco, and some other companies sell surface aerators of .5 and .75 hp that are mounted on the surface of a pond and cause a "bubble" effect. This doesn't turn water over like an airlift, so it's not as efficient at overall O2 delivery, but it does deliver O2 quite well at night. Anyway, what would be the effect on smaller ponds of buying the horizontal mount and swirling the pond water day and night? Could the effect on everyday ponds be as similarly dramatic as on my pond? Is there a chance that such a system would allow southern ponds to support fish that ordinarily require a little cooler water? Could someone in Oklahoma grow a few yellow perch? Maybe a guy with a small pond in Oklahoma could try this. My pond completely changed colors when I began horizontal circulation. What had been brownish for two months changed to jade green. Even my deeper water without an airlift measured O2 that was usable by fish.
I just thought this might generate a little intrigue. Any thoughts?
Here's a link to a product that might do the trick. I AM NOT advocating this particular brand.
There may be others that Ted Lea Forevergreen might be able to provide for our edification.
http://www.aeratordeicer.com/circulators.html
