Pond Boss Forums AERATION Should I aerate? Aeration for 20+ acre pond 7' deep and less

George, you are correct to a certain extent. Bottom diffuser aeration system swill work at shallower depths for warmer water, Texas ponds, but it's more critical to look at the GPM of water moved to the surface in shallower applications. That typically requires more diffusers per surface acre than what is spec'd. out for a deeper pond, which means more self-sink air line, which drives up the cost.

In hatchery ponds where they are seined out, having the diffusers on the bottom makes it hard to seine, and more labor is involved because I'd imagine that they'd have to be removed for every seining.

I don't know where the break even point (operating cost and system cost) is for surface agitators vs. bottom diffusion systems, but for shallow production ponds, what Todd is using IS the best for his application, no doubt about it.

Surface agitators and paddlewheels will transfer a lot of O2 to the water, but what are the operating costs, and what are the maintenance costs per "X" amount of O2 transferred? I don't know the answer to that question.

It's all about overhead costs in a hatchery, so I believe that the surface agitators and paddle wheel aerators transfer more O2 to the pond AND are easier to remove for seining than bottom diffusion systems.

I have a clients pond that has a high BOD due to 5' of muck in the bottom of the pond, many leaves falling into the pond and possibly mound type septic systems dumping water into the pond. The pond is 5/8 acre and 7' deep max. Running 3 Vertex XL4 diffuser stations, and one Kasco surface agitator, the O2 levels were at saturation in 79�F water temp top to bottom in the water column in all depths of the pond, and the Rainbow Trout were still alive. Could I do that with just a bottom diffuser system? I doubt it. Could I do that with multiple surface agitator without a drop tube on at least one of them? I doubt that as well, but a phone call to Kasco or Otterbine should get an answer relatively quickly.

The other thing to consider is the cost of the power cord. In that 19 ac pond, I ran approximately 1 mile of self-weighted air tubing. Some runs were over 800' long. That was just for half of the pond. What would a power cord that length for a surface agitator with a 1 or 2 hp motor cost??