Pond Boss Forums AERATION Should I aerate? Winter Aeration In Northern Canada

birddog reinforces the improtance to removing DEEP snow from a small pond to maintain high levels of DO during ice cover. Early removal of snow after a decent snow fall is no doubt more important, if trout are in the pond since rely on a higher DO than most other fish.

As Ted Lea often suggests, an alternative to removing snow can be operation of the aerator long enough to clear a decent sized open water area over the diffuser. NOTE - Beware of producing hypothermia upon the fish due to extended or excessive aeration during ice cover. Once open water is produced then allow the water to refreeze as CLEAR ice which will allow lots of sunlight into the depths for plant photosynthesis which will cause an increase in DO. The critical segment of this MELT-REFREEZE method is how big of an open water area has to be produced to allow adequate DO production due to sunlight penetration and photosynthesis. This will be dependent on several things such as species of fish, ratio of open water area to size of pond, clarity of water, number or amount of sunny days, and amount of phytoplankton in the water column. Numerous IFs or variables are involved here.