Pond Boss Forums AERATION Systems questions will this aeration kit work for for my pond?

I found a neat web site a couple of weeks ago while looking for a small aeration system and I found this It produces 0.50 cubic feet a minute of air comes with 4 difusers 4 rolls of 25 ft air line and 4 check valves plus it only sucks 11 watts of electricity and it's 100 dollars what do you guys think?

How far is it from your pond to the power source?

about 2 feet with the extention cord that I have runing down their in the summer other wise it's about 300 feet. Will this kit push enough water to the top of the pond to keep it oxygenated?

SP, restate how deep your pond is so someone can guide you better.

The pond is 4 ft deep roughly 18000 gallons when full and the surface dimensions are 20 by 50 ft.

I think it would work as long as as it's quality material. If it's Chinese made all bets are off.

However at only 4 feet deep it would seem to be you'd get a bigger bang for you buck with a surface aerator albeit more expensive.

Small Pond,

I think it would work as well. I would try to put your fusers in 3 to 4 feet see how they work there you might have to move the 4 foot deep ones up a little but try it first. Heck a lot of AQ's are 3 to 4 feet deep so I am sure it would work. Unless like Cecil said if it's made in China you never know???? May work great may work for 4 days! I would somehow shelter that pump though from the elements.

RC

Since I don't want to get stuck with a piece of crap I'll spend a little extra money and get this It's made in the usa and has some pretty good reviews
Thankyou guys for taking the time to type up answers for my many questions I don't want to be a pest to the forum I just want to learn and when I can give back a bit of knowledge.

SP,

Most of the questions you ask are ones I didn't know I should be asking. Keep asking them. I have learned a lot from the experts responses to your post. Thanks for all you are contributing to this community.

Mudhole,

On ebay is a system that I have worked with personally. I still build backyard watergardens and install one of these in each pond I build. It is reliable, from MI and silent in operation. Search for KoiAir 2 on ebay.

This uses a liner air compressor along with 2 diffuser plates with a substrait barrier. Each plate has 2 EPDM membrane diffuser sticks.

4 feet depth is max for this unit. If you are deeper, look for
Shallow Water or AM10 or AM20. For deeper, look for a Vertex unit.

Look for made in the US, reliability, ease of installation and maintenance and operational cost. Goal for your small pond is to provide enough turnover to ensure even oxygen levles from top to bottom, temperatures the same from top to bottom and increase the area for beneficial bacteria to do their work.

Small that's looks even better. And it's made here! Give us some video when you get it setup would like to see it.

RC

SP,

I think you are going about this the wrong way. I would use your input water to aerate your small pond. Bottom diffusers are used to circulate water to the top and let nature off gas the bad stuff and add O2 to that water. Top water aeration is how O2 is put into water.

Knowing your input pipe, I would design a cap (or caps) that curtained the water as it fell to your pond which would add a lot more O2 to your pond with no additional costs and no maintenance.

PM me if you want more of my two cents on this one, it should cost you about $10 to do it my way.

Isn't 100Y a long way to run power on an extension cord? I'm not much of an electrician but I know there are some around here...

How many cfm's Lee?

Will do the other day I sighned up to youtube that should make posting the video a lot easier.

Yesterday I had to take out the input pipes out so that I could get the water to flow into the back of the spring house but now the water is splashing over a bunch of rocks and a water fall it should be saturating the incoming water with oxygen pretty well. But I appreciate the suggestion. The bottom diffuser aeration system should add o2 to the pond too won't it? It's still exposing water to the air and circulating the pond tho it's not like a fountain where it's splashing the water and breaking it down into little droplets. What's more efficient at adding disolved oxygen a fountain or a diffused aeration system?

1.68 cfm and it's capable of pumping down to 5 ft deep.

Bottom diffusers are used to move water to the surface (and back to the bottom), not to add O2 to the water. Think of bottom diffusers as water pumps. Surface aerators are O2 injectors.

The waterfall is a great O2 injector. It is one of mother natures bests O2 injectors!!

I just can't believe Cary somewhat recommended a Vertex system - it's been about 10 years since he's done that!! Yea!

Unfortunately a surface aerator isn't really an option cause of the amount of electricity they use will a bottom diffuser be enough to keep sufficient oxygen levels in my pond?

It will prevent any stagnant water but not sure if you will really have any with only four feet of water and flow through.

There's a 1/8th hp surface aerator available that might be the ticket.

Who sells it? The smallest surface aerator I've seen is 1/4 horse power

Flyer,

Not sure about your statement here? Bottom diffusers do move water to the surface from the bottom of the pond as you said, but its my understanding (unless I am wrong) which I could be, as that water hits the surface of your pond it is then re oxygenated. Hence the reason for a bottom diffuser. To push deep water that has no D.O. back up to the surface to get more 02. and then cycle back through again and again.

RC

Bottom diffusers lift water allowing it to be exposed to air. During that proces that water is exposed to less pressure which allows it to off gas the bad stuff. While are the surface it is also allowed to pickup some O2.

Meanwhile, the water that was at the surface when this started will be circulated towards the bottom introducing some more O2 to the lower levels which is beneficial.

Surface aerators add far more O2 (due to the added agitation and air exposure) to the surface water and starts a circulation process that will also move saturated water to lower levels.

So in short:

bottom diffusers = water movement to surface
Surface aerators = O2 injections to the top water and circulation.


FWIW Fish farmers use far more surface aerators.

Hopes this helps.

BTW:
For Georgetopia, I noticed and immediate increase in the O2 saturations at the surface first and all levels with in two hours using a surface aerator. In fact my numbers were so impressive, I checked my calibration three times and sampled the water in the pond three times over the course of a day before posting my results.

Got cha