Pond Boss Forums AERATION Should I aerate? Aeration in the winter

In my pond I get water flowing through the porous sandy soil that the pond is dug in and when compared to the local lake that is roughly 1.5 miles away I seem to always have about half the ice thickness that is on the lake. When I take water temps in my pond, they are consistently 2-3 degrees higher than the water that is in the lake. I think that is the reason for the thinner ice on my pond. I am in a Lake Effect snow belt, so if I have 1"-2" ice on the pond and a Lake Effect storm comes through, the snow piles up on the ice and turns the ice white before I can safely get out there to clean the snow off. That's the main reason why I run the winter aeration system.

A customer had a 2 year old pond (it was only stocked at 1/2 the recommended stocking rate when new) and he had a windmill aeration system. It was set up so the deep diffuser was shut off during the winter and the one in shallow water was turned on. He had a fish kill when we had a 2 week span in February of no wind, heavy fog with about 3" ice and 6" snow on the pond. The other ponds of his did NOT have a winterkill, but they were aerated with a grid based system.