Originally posted by Michael Ebaugh:
Cecil:
Interesting note you made about the fish die off near a well input. I'm thinking I should have this water tested and seee what's really in there. We did have 5 trout show up dead immediately in the vicinity of the well pump inlet (coldest area). I have no concerns with temp rise during areation through a medium as it is flowing so fast and cold- it would be no loss. It is likely due to low O2 at the least and aybe high nitrogen. While the flowing 1 1/2 pipe does hang 3 ft. above the pond and make quite a splash and churn, I would guess it is impossible that this same spalshing is oxygenating much of the incoming flow, since most of it is plunging 2-3 ft. below. Your thoughts on this?
It takes a lot to remove nitrogen significantly. The closer you get to equalibrium the less effective -- even with a packed column. But one plus with dumping into a pond is the fish aren't usually confined to the immediate inflow unless there isn't enough well flow to keep the pond cool enough, and they have congregate at the inflow. I think initial D.O. could be more of an immediate problem. Have you measured D.O. in the vicinity of the inflow? Ironicially with my inflow, I don't see much of a temp difference with the rest of the pond. Right where it dumps in it's cooler, but just a few feet away it's the same as ther rest of the pond. Seems like the cool inflow gets absorbed rapidly, and the temp homogenizes fast, or the cooler water goes straight down due to it's higher density.
I've also noticed even feeding fish avoid the area right at the inflow. I know it's not low D.O. because my packed column aerates the water before it even hits the pond, and by the time it dumps into the pond it's over 90 percent saturated. I'm thinking either a minute amount of hydrogen sulfide turns them off, or the iron farther away from the inflow is much lower as it settles out.
one way you can get your flow to be exposed to more air is to put in elbow on the end of you inflow pipe turn upward. That will cause the water to break up before dumping into the pond. I can do it on my gravity flow pipe because the elbow even though it's turned upward is still lower than the starting point.
