Originally Posted by esshup
The reason that I am aggravated by it is that about 10 years ago I tried running it part time to keep the water temperature down (I had trout in the pond) due to the people on here suggesting that without providing data and I wanted to keep the pond water cooler so they'd live longer into the summer. What I found out was that they actually lived longer if I didn't aerate at all, because the water actually warmed up faster and they croaked. I only ran the system when the night time temps were below 70°F. On the flip side of the coin, I was able to keep trout alive longer if I ran the system 24/7 and ran a surface agitator 24/7 too. That raised the O2 levels in the pond high enough so that the trout would stay alive in water temps that were 79-80 degrees.

This has my curiosity piqued. Is it fair to say that trout live longer without aeration unless one operates a surface agitator? Though you didn't try this, I wonder what the results would be if you ran the surface agitator only.

It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so - Will Rogers