Pond Boss Forums AERATION Should I aerate? First ICE. 1.5" thick already.

I have moved my aerator to a shallow end of my .5 acer pond for the winter. The pond is about 10' at deepest point. The aerator is in about 2-3' of water. We recently got a few inches of rain and then a big cool down the next day. My areator is keeping an 8'area open from ice. I noticed lots of fat heads along the shore befor the ice so I think my forage is good. Is there anything else I need to consider. Thanks

Sounds to me like you've done everything right so far. As long as you don't end up with a pond that's entirely covered with a layer of ice and a blanket of snow you should be OK. I'm not an expert though.

Even if your diffuser is in shallow water, I'm not sure if I'd run it 24/7 though. They can still disrupt deeper warmer waters somewhat. Just my two cents.

MN,In your size pond of .5 acre and unless you are very overstocked and/or have a lot of organic matter I would shut it off for now. This is a transition time for midwest and northern ponds. Rapid water temperature change is very stressful even for cold water types.If you get snow cover for 2-3 weeks then consider starting it back up.Most diffusers will melt 4-6 inches of ice off in 24 hours with as little as 1-2 cfm. Anytype of diffuser even in shallow water can super cool the warmer deeper water quickly in a small pond.If your pond was 2-3 acres I might alter this somewhat.We had 67F in NW Ohio yesterday and 4 inches of rain overnight. Today the temps are headed for 26F tonight and 16F tommorrow with 60 mph gusts and 30 mph sustained. This will over circulate most ponds and cool them too fast. This same weather picture happened last year the first week of December and any 1-3 inch readear we stocked in November did not survive. Can not do much about mother nature but when you have some control and choice such as when to aerate and when not to take advantage of it.

We have had a few nights in a row in the single digits and not getting above freezing for highs. I checked the thickness of the ice sunday and it was 4" thick. I have been running the aerator for a few hours during the warmest part of the day just to keep the ice thickness down in that area of the pond. In most seasons we average 18" of ice in the southern part of the state and 24"+ in the north. 18" is alot in a pond only 10' deep.

MN,circulating 33 degreeF water under the ice is better than aerating open water with the air temps in the single digits.I do not know what system you have but again thawing 4-6 inches of ice with low a cfm pump is easy to do.I see more midwest and northern ponds "over circulated " than I do "under aerated" in the winter months.Keep an eye on things and you should be fine.

MN - Ice cover of 24" is not a lot of ice for a 0.5 ac pond during all winter; BUT more than 5" of snow on top of that ice for longer than 14 days is REAL TROUBLE. Sunlight can easily penetrate 24" of ice but with 4" of a snow blanket almost no light gets through the ice. No light = no oxygen production.

Couldn't believe it. Last Wednesday it was near 50 with total open water. By end of day on Friday the pond was frozen over with 4 inches of ice.