Pond Boss Forums AERATION Systems questions 8 acre pond at 10,000' - lots of aeration ?s

I'm BAAAAACCCKKKK!!

So... it's been a while and lots have happened, but I will try to keep it short.

My ex kept the cabin, but has only visited it once in the last 5 years. My son moved to colorado Feb 2025 to beging plumbing apprenticeship. He lives at the cabin until the snow pushes him out and then he lives down in town with my lifelong best friend that helped me so much with this project. In a WILD turn of events, in May 2025 I bought the neighboring cabin!!! (The EX wasn't to happy about that LOL). Super sweet spot and I love it! Plus I am now next door to my son!

Other good news, my son just picked up a 32 KWH Lifepo battery for the system at his place and he is GUNG HO about continuing the lake project. PLUS with him living out there he can put eyes on it all year! The new battery should allow him to run the pumps 2-3x what I was doing.


Soooo, it's not MY lake anymore, but I WILL be helping my son out with it and doing some fishing! So wish us luck and let's see what happens in 2026!!

That's awesome! Congrats! Looking forward to more reports from future adventures on the mountain lake project

wbuffet, that is SUCH GOOD NEWS!!! Just thrilled that all the effort up at that pond and all the progress you made won't fade into nothingness. Perhaps those of us here who learned so much and enjoyed your posts and pictures are being a bit selfish when we get excited on our end as well but we really are excited FOR you as well.

Hopefully with your son's help you can continue the updates including the PICTURES and you can continue the learning curve on how to keep the life cycle going in that harsh environment.

I'm assuming the BOW went through winter kills the last few winters so.. are you starting over with a blank slate? Likely no fish, no invertebrates like scuds etc even? Crayfish even?

How will your son be able to live there all year, will he be snowed in for several weeks each winter? It sounds like you won't be there in the winter still.

I think it is impressive that you managed to find a way to keep fish going there for a time and I'm confident you can do it again!

Thank y'all!

Canyon the scuds and fatheads lived thru everything up there. I think they are indestructible. Just no fish. My son will be stocking fish this summer and then we will see what's up next winter!! With so much more battery power I am sure he will be successful!

That's great news and a HUGE change of events!

YAY! Welcome back to Colorado. And to posting on the forum.
I'm looking forward to your continuing this adventure.

So got back from a CO trip about two weeks ago. I installed solar panels and poured a concrete slab for solar shed at my place. Helped my son install his new battery. It's a Yixiang MB56 628kwh battery. It's one "small" cube that weighs 650lbs! Has it's own BMS and all that. The thing is pretty dang sweet. Pumps fired right back up with minimal issues. Son and a buddy got out on the boat and fished up all the diffusers. The duck decoy floats had all sunk and it seems the ice disrupting pipes I put in in 2020/2021 had all fallen over. They put new decoys on and cleaned off the diffusers. His best day for power production that I saw over the week I was there was over 18kwh. Not too bad for just over 3,000W of panels!

It did SEEM like there were less fatheads and scuds in the pond than in the years before. I am assuming aeration being off for couple/few years hurt their numbers, but also assuming they will come back FAST!

Son has a list of things to get done by the fall. Koenders windmill is SHOT! Rebuild kit is already on site so he's gonna knock that out. Ice pipes fell over so he's gonna install new longer pipes and drive them deeper. in Sept/Oct he's gonna suspend diffusers 12"-18" deep from the new pipes. We disconnected his wind turbine as it NEVER produced any usable power. He is going to take that charge controller and try to add another 1,800W of solar panels to his system so he can REALLY run the pumps this winter. I am sure other things will come up, but for now if he gets all this done I think success this Winter is all but guaranteed!

I am headed back out for two weeks to work on my place and help him as needed! I'm building the new solar shed, installing all components and hopefully turning off the generator for good! I know y'all like pics so here you go! 14 of 16 solar panels mounted, concrete poured and a bunch of trees down with more to go!

Nice work.

I hope your reward is lots of future fun!

Good luck on the Koenders. If he's got to replace the bearings he better have a cutting torch available to cut the bearings off the shaft.

many thanks for coming back and giving us an update! More pictures please For sure share your success or failures with the windmill rehab and also if your son catches any larger fish that would be cool to share. I don't know if any of your trout would have survived till now?

Good news man!

You're gonna have that place fixed up so nice and handy that your ex is gonna wanna move out there! jk

That is a beautiful place and you've put a lot of sweat equity into the place,, I hope you get to enjoy it for years to come.

You were talking about him restocking it, did the trout you had established in there fade out that quickly? I was thinking you had a pretty good population established.

Good Luck!

Update:

On the mountain for two weeks and got to help my son a good bit with his system. We got diffusers cleaned off good, installed one extra diffuser and readjusted flow to all diffusers.

As far as diffusers pumping, he has:
Off solar:
1 - quad
2 - duals
1- single
Off windmill:
1 - single

We took some DO measurements as well....
1' deep - 7.80 PPM
11' deep - 6.80 PPM

Temp was ~ 65 to 64.5 F from 1' to 11'

Lots of fish hitting the surface!

Looking really good so far. Extremely hot temps currently, two fires too close for comfort, but looks like rains might be on the way.

DO looks real good to me.

Those are the DOs you want to have in winter.

We are giving it our best shot!

With those DO's you should have very happy fish !