Originally Posted by jpsdad
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.

I believe the trout live longer into the summer because they have a cooler undisturbed lower layer of water to get to, although after a while the cooler water becomes oxygen depleted. THEN the trout are seen nosing into the 54°F oxygenated well water that I was pumping into the pond.

I DID figure out how to get trout to live all summer long in a deep pond, it required surface agitation and specific placements of the subsurface air stations. (it took 3 years of trial and error) and THAT pond has the aeration systems running 24/7...........

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