To little aeration is NOT better than nothing. It can worsen the water quality if not sized to a bare minimum and don't forget that you will likely end up only running at night and not have all 24 hours of a day to turn your water.
I'm going to show my ignorance here, but how would even a minimal amount of aeration be detrimental to water quality compared to no aeration at all? I would think adding any oxygen to a pond, and turning over any quantity of water, would overall be more beneficial to the ecosystem than stagnation.
Give me your surface area and average depth and I can suggest some minimum and more ideal requirements for the number of diffusers and pump output.
I'm not certain, but believe it is in the ballpark of 0.4 surface acre with an average depth of 6, maybe 7'.
This really depends on when the minnows go in. Late in the year and you might as well spend the money on pellet feed, you'll get more for your money. Late in the year does not let them reproduce much if at all. Seriously, the FHM's need to go in the pond in late April/early May and left to do there thing until the following spring, then add the game fish. Lots of pallets (15 to 20 for your size pond) under 1 to 3 foot of water makes them very happy and prolific! Here's my thoughts on "why" do it this way. If the FHM's go in in the spring and only have 2 months, you'll get alot of fry, but not so many full grown adults (the fry will be eaten quickly by the smaller gamefish). If given all summer, the fry grow to be adults and the following year your gamefish are to small to eat the adults, but will grow big on the massive amounts of YOY FHM fry. Now the adults are left to make more fry and are left to feed the game fish as they grow to be able to eat the large sizes. You get two seasons of forage compared to one.
Your posts on this forum have all been exceedingly helpful, but specifically with FHM I have read your "Fathead Minnow Population" thread and used it to shape my thoughts.
You stocked 3.5lb of FHM into your 0.25a pond in April 2017, and one year later in April 2018 stocked 500 HBG, 50 RES and 40 HSB. You gave your FHM a year to recruit, providing a strong forage base.
What I'm thinking is late March/early April 2020 placing 4x as many FHM into my 0.4a pond as you did your 0.25a pond, and instead of giving them a full year to recruit, two months. I'm hoping that by stocking a larger amount initially, I can shorten the lead time you experienced and still have a strong population of both adults and fry when gamefish are stocked. Essentially, I'd get to the similar place you got with regards to FHM, but trading less time for higher investment.
I definitely have more work to do on structure/habitat...that'll come after the dock gets complete.
