All makes good sense. Does this describe the situation accurately:

Accumulated layered mixture of leafy residues and decomposing muck is being slowly acted on by natural anaerobic bacteria within the muck structure and minimum aerobic bacteria due to low oxygen at the surface layer of that structure.

Added oxygen from aeration improves muck upper layer oxygen but impact is slowed by layered structure inhibiting oxygen transport to bulk of muck structure

Addition of artificially high aerobic bacteria treatment may speed up the upper layer decomposition but available digestible organic material is still limited by layered non digestible leafy residue, resulting in premature die off of added bacteria count.

If new leaf residue is sufficiently restricted so that the combined effect of subsurface anaerobic and muck surface aerobic (aided by aeration and yearly treatment), the pond may eventually clear.

Addition of muck layer disruption should speed up the whole process as well as extend the useful life of each periodic treatment. (Although at the cost of locally muddy water as the stirred material resettles).



As for restricting leaf residue, I am hoping that aeration surface flow along with air movement from a leaf blower will move leaf debris towards the pond edges where it can be netted with hand net or sein during peak leaf fall.