Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - Surface agitator, run it all the time or not?

I am sure this question has been asked but I cannot find an answer that exactly fits - I have a surface agitator that moves a lot of water in one of my ponds which is about a half acre big. I run it in the winter to keep part of the pond open and normally run it in the summer when we get into the hot weather. However this year, the pond is pretty low(down 5 feet at least) so about 8 feet would be the deepest part. The agitator is sitting over about 4 feet of water , but I can move it anywhere. I have not run this all summer as I was afraid with the lower water levels, it might effect the cooler water on the bottom? So the question is what would be better for the fish, leave it off or turn it on? Move it over the deepest part and turn it on? Does it matter since its surface only? The pond does not get much wind. We are having temps in the 90's every day like most everywhere else! I'm in Iowa- Also we are catching some LM bass and they are pretty skinny which we have never seen before. The pond has LM, BG, green sunfish, a few large crappie and a few large catfish. We still see small fish along the edges of the pond, but I feel like we don't have enough forage in there now since it is so low. There is structure in it but no moss or much vegetation as there are also a few large grass carp. I do not feed. Just trying to do what's best for the fish. Any advice would be appreciated.

Can you measure DO ? That is the key. If DO is low then run the agitator enough to improve DO. How much of the pond is 4' and how much 8' ? Have you checked to see if you have a thermocline and at what depth?

Fish can survive higher temp longer than they can survive to low DO.

In the shallow production ponds of the fish farms in Arkansas they run the surface agitators at night and anytime during the day that the O2 is too low. They are more concerned with low O2 levels than water temp.