fowells, hopefully someone truly expert in aeration will reply, but I don't think aeration will make plants grow. Plants MAKE oxygen not consume it so i don't think you have an oxygen dearth. However aeration does tend to clear up the water and if light can penetrate in the deeper water to the bottom then you may see good vegetation growth.
The little I can say is that my pond was bare (refurbished and redug) and vegetation found its way easily in the clear, nutrient poor water. In a couple of years I had vegetation explosions (mostly unwanted milfoil) The last 2 years the nutrients are higher due to 'aging', natural leaf fall, algae, fertilizer run off, more fish poop, and not a single stem, weed or aquatic plant anywhere period. Chemicals couldn't have stripped it this clean.
The only difference? 2 years ago I added a few crayfish. Now I do have a few left over goldfish that I keep fishing out maybe they also help but I think the crayfish are to blame. Are they that hungry? I only put in a few and never saw little ones so I can't imagine there are that many in a bare bottom pond with hungry perch around. But the adult stockers were too large for any of the perch to eat so the adults should still be there.
So maybe your crayfish are eating plants, but also crayfish tend to stir up the water and the light can't get to the bottom. My pond is a muddy color all year around and I probably can thank the crayfish for the natural 'pond dye'
I'm told if you have LMB or SMB to control the crayfish you might see the vegetation come back, on the other hand, if the crayfish have rip, rocks, logs, trees, and other cover, you probably will never diminish their numbers...just achieve a balance.
