Just a back of the napkin calculation without the napkin. Dissolved oxygen is measured in milligrams per liter and the saturation points are very low esp at summer temperatures. Meanwhile an acre of algae is producing way more O2 than the surface water can hold. It's got to go somewhere and (unfortunately) it ain't sinking into the depths.

Re: the aerator I assume you mean gallons per hour or gallons per day, but how much is the water's surface area actually increased? Probably not very much. That's where the picking up atmospheric O2 happens. If the water all has the same DO concentration moving it around won't increase the rate it's absorbed from the atmosphere. Like I said I'd guess it wasn't adding much O2 to the pond water overall, just redistributing what was already dissolved in the water. But I'm not any kind of expert and reality often doesn't conform with what you'd expect.

Last edited by rlb3; 11/23/25 03:12 PM.
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