Pond Boss Forums AERATION Systems questions Aeration

Has anyone tried compressed air for an aeration method? I was walkin by the kid pool with my air bubble and played around with the hose underwater...got me thinkin that you don't need wind or electric if you could run air in pulses of say 15 or twenty minutes a few times a day out of a large tank would that be enough in a 3/4 acre pond to make a difference?

Ummm if you don't use wind or electric how do you plan to compress the air?

15 to 20 minutes a few times a day will not be enough to make it worth while. At least I don't think it will. In a pond your size which is about the size of mine you really need your air running I would say at least 4 hours a day to do any good. Lets see what others have to say. I am no expert on air just giving you my 2 cents.

RC

I'm with RC on this one.. And I don't understand what your saying you was walking around the pool with an air bubble?

RC...I would need elec to compress the air...and I can do that at the house...I was talking about on site at the pond...wouldn't need anything to get the air flowing other than the pressure in the tank to aerate the pond..(basically just brainstormin out loud here)...BGK, I was going by the pool on the way to air up the tractor tire...thought I would have a little fun with the 3 year old...pretty cool the fountain you can make...she thought that was a hoot...

Oh ok that makes more sense now! Still though it is not worth doing for just a few times at 20 minutes a day and compressors suck a lot of juice. The situation you are talking about would be someting one might do for an emergency when you needed some DO and you needed it like right now!! And even then don't know how much good it would do???

What you could do is this.

Get a good air pump keep it up near the house and run you a pvc pipe or some kind of plastic long type hose all the way to your pond. Once your at the pond attach weighted line from Ted at Forever Green he has good prices on his stuff! Then attach two diffusers to weighted hose somewhere in the middle of your pond. Run air about 8 to 10 or 12 hours a day on a timer. Now your doing something worth while for your pond and your fish will love it!

RC

What RC is recommending is what I ended up doing, 800' from the socket to the pond. It works great. Highly recommend talking to one of the aeration experts here and getting a read on what they think you need.

John

One other thought, its the diffuser that counts. not just getting air to the bottom. I believe the experts will tell you about bubble size and lift capacity. They will also talk about complete mixing of the water column. An air compressor designed for high PSI for use on a farm will not be efficient for use in a diffuser system. Can you make it work, sure, but you will spend a lot more on your system and it will not be efficient. my 2c.

I'm gonna guess here and say a diffuser is more efficient at adding oxygen than a single stream of bubbles, but wouldn't the single stream do better at mixing a larger volume of water? Thanks for the input guys

A diffuser is more effecient at lifting water. Small bubbles working together can lift a tremendous amount of water per hr to the surface.