Ok, finally getting around to posting a serious question (I hate it when that happens). So what follows is a long, rather tedious and serious post.
When my good friend Dave (aka DIED) came over to my place he mentioned that I should seriously consider getting an aeration system. So I've been reading Aeration threads galore and visiting Aeration web sites and guess what? I still know slightly more than squat about aeration systems.
In anticipation of questions here is some pond background information:
The pond is located in Northern California in the Sierra Nevada foothills at approximately 2,000 feet elevation. As near as I can tell the pond was created in the 1940's - I know old for a pond. What has probably been the savior of this pond is that is has a year round spring that feeds the pond. The pond varies in size from approximately 3 acres at the high water mark and drops down to about 2.5 acres at the low water mark (give or take). The pond is stocked with LMB, BG, RES, GSF and Gams. The pond has always had Elodea in it and some FA but nothing too extreme in past years. This year however the Elodea is growing more noticeably and I'm seeing much more FA than in the past. I've already been in contact with some weed control experts and they've recommend aquatic herbicides to chemically treat the Elodea and FA in small sections so as not to cause an O2 crash. I don't know how much of that is relevant but there it is.
Oh and one other minor challenge - - there is no power currently on the property. At this point my two options seem to be Windmill aeration or a solar system. The primary problem that I see with a Windmill at my place is that I don't know if there is enough wind to generate the required PSI to (1) property aerate the pond to a suitable depth and (2) in the worst summer months (July and August) the wind can be dead still and (3) It won't run at night (which from what I've read seems to be the optimal time to run aeration). So I am leaning toward a solar system. Based upon my research to date in order to build a solar system that would run an aerator 10 hours or so a day during the evening hours that would run a GAST 0523 (just picked this pump because it seemed like it would provide enough PSI to do what I need) is gonna cost about $2,500 to $2,800.
I only used the GAST pump for solar spec calculation purposes - I'm not married (nor engaged nor even shacking up with) the GAST pump (even though the GAST pump appears to be well bred, is a rather attractive and has a slightly naughty attitude) - I just had to pick something to perform amp hour requirement calculations. I'm gonna run the solar system specs through a solar forum to see if I'm on the right track but based upon similar systems I've seen I think I'm fairly close. I have looked at some complete solar aeration systems but it seem as though a rather large premium is charged for the solar equipment but I would welcome any input from folks that sold complete (solar aeration) systems as well.
So here's a photo of the pond with some notations:
A few notes related to the photo: (1) the Red X is the approximate location of the spring and (2) the depth contour lines are an approximation - not some official survey or anything. (3) A seasonal creek (runs approx Nov through April) enters the pond on the right side of the photo into the shallow end of the pond.
So after that long winded set up what do you think?
Would a Windmill set up be sufficient?
Would a traditional aeration system powered via solar be worth the extra cost?
Would one pump with two to three diffusers be sufficient for this size pond (2.5 to 3 acres)?
Can I get system suggestions and quotes (can quote me via email if you prefer).
Do you need any other info?
Is there life on Mars?
Wow, a fairly serious (at least for me) long winded post - That hurt a lot more than I though it would, I need to take some aspirin and lay down now.
