Pond Boss Forums Like Post

WARNING:: readers beware.. long winded post!

Just got back from a very exciting and productive trip to the mountains.

First day there I measured DO levels and saw a huge improvement over past years. I do not understand what caused the improvement, but I am happy for it. Maybe it is due to running aeration for some time now and overall things have improved??

End of Sept 2020 afternoon measurement
DO levels were
1' deep - 5.94ppm 56.6F
5' deep - 5.86ppm 55.3F
15' deep - 4.76ppm 54.5F

Oct 2nd 2021 afternoon measurement
DO levels were
1' deep - 7.50ppm 53.2F
10' deep - 7.15ppm 52.5F

In the Fall of 2020 we installed a pipe vertically in the pond and placed a vertex dual diffuser on the pond bottom next to the pipe. The pipe stood about 18" above the waterline. This pipe was an experiment to see if the pipe could prevent the ice from doming up over my diffusers which had been preventing the diffusers from keeping a hole open. I have five different vertex air station locations in the lake and only one of them had a pipe installed. The ONE air station with the pipe was the ONLY air station to keep a hole open all winter. It was also the ONLY air station to keep a hole open all winter EVER recorded in six years of monitoring this lake. My water temps in winter 2020/21 got very low, actually way too low - 32.5F.

The decision was made this year to install pipes at three of the remaining air stations (to prevent doming) and suspend the diffusers at a shallower depth to try to prevent water temps from going so low. The fourth air station, a vertex quad diffuser station in ~21' of water, got a buoy instead of a pipe. I am hoping to buoy can also disrupt the ice like the pipes do. Time will tell. Here's the setup.... I have two vertex dual diffusers stations located in ~12' of water suspended from the pipe at ~4' to 4.5'. The vertex quad diffuser station is located in 21' of water and is suspended from the buoy at 10'-11' deep. My Koenders windmill runs a single vertex diffuser that was suspended ~12" -18" below the water surface. I will say the meat of this theory comes from MNFish in Minnesota. He believes, for true Northern ponds, a guy should aerate the top layer of the water column and let the DO diffuse its way down into the lower water. DO NOT directly feed O2 to the bottom of the pond by having the diffusers sitting directly on the bottom. He believes this will prevent the muck/bacteria from sucking the DO out of the water when ice covered for months on end. (My lake is under ice for 7 to 8 months out of the year.) So far his measurements and results prove out. This also kept his water temps MUCH warmer than my water even though his Minnesota winters bring much colder temps than I ever see. He regularly deals with -20F and worse for extended amounts of time. His water temps never went below 37F. Last year my water temps hit 32.7F!!

Three days after making the change in the aeration setup there was a noticeable change in DO levels.I recorded the highest DO that has ever been recorded up there. I did not think 10.0ppm was going to be possible at 10,000' elevation.

Oct 5th 2021 afternoon measurement
DO levels were
1' deep - 10.03ppm!!! 53.8F
10' deep - 6.84ppm 51.4F
14' deep - 6.65ppm 51.1F

I was blown away by those readings. That made me think I needed to know a worst case for DO levels and measure first thing in the morning. I still have a lot of vegetation in the water so semi concerned of an over night DO crash.

Oct 6th 2021 sunrise measurement
DO levels were
1' deep - 7.49ppm 50.8F
5' deep - 7.14ppm 51.4F
10' deep - 6.71ppm 51.1F

Still WAY better than 2020!!

Here is a pic of my new setup. Like I said, this dual vertex is set ~4' to 4.5' deep. There is extra rope that allows the diffuser to be lowered down to 10' deep in the spring at ice off. I am DONE placing the diffusers right on the pond bottom. Suspending the diffusers has other multiple advantages. One, less backpressure on my pumps allows me to run for longer periods of time - I am running on 100% solar so any power savings is huge. Two, the plume is much more violent, although I AM moving less water.



Here is a couple videos of the plumes in action. I mention it in the video, but this plume is only from the Thomas 2660 1/2hp pump. Unfortunately I did not get a video of the big daddy 1 HP Gast 1550 running simultaneously with the 2660, which is how it runs the majority of the time. The plume then is down right violent.

[video:youtube][/video]

[video:youtube][/video]

Did anyone wonder "what happened to the fith air station"?? If so, here's your answer..... I also built a spawning box for the brook trout and used the fifth airline to power it. Thanks to an old Pond Boss magazine article by Mark Cornwell I learned about spawning boxes for Brookies. I saw the article was available in an old magazine so I called up PB and ordered a copy. Very informative. I also got Mark C on the phone and he told me he had personally documented 80 Brook Trout using ONE 4' x 8' spawning box!! Reproduction is the last thing missing in my lake. Now, the resident trout could be successfully reproducing and my previously nasty water quality over winter was just killing the fry. I don't know. I just figured the spawning box would be good insurance so I went with it. I should have taken more pics, but I didn't. I suspended the box from chains to four pipes driven into the pond bottom. The PVC grid is drilled to allow air to percolate up through the gravel. We then boated 2,000lbs of gravel by the five gallon bucket load across the lake to fill the box. Here is my dad ready to help me launch the box. I don't think he knew what he signed up for on this trip!



Finally, I worked my azz off so hard I did not even cast a line one time in my own lake. How funny, or sick, is that!! I kind of don't even want to catch or disturb any of those fish! WTH is wrong with me?? I did, however, catch about 80 of these beauties!!! Can't wait to have 4-5 lb'ers like these in my own water! Hopefully I won't mind catching them then!!