Will an airstone or a vertex diffuser do a better/faster job of punching thru thick ice? Any real world experience?

I have no data. BUT, coarser bubbles will keep a bigger area open due to wave action. An air stone will need more maintenance than a rubber membrane disk.

Rubber - shut off air, scrub with mild scotchbrite pad or dish cleaning pad, drop down, turn air back on.

Air stone - I think of bleach or acid to clean the pores.

So do you think that in an area like mine a stone would stand a better chance of KEEPING a hole open?

Hey wbuffetjr ~ I have lot's of experience with winter aeration via rubber membranes. If you send me your email I can send you some photos. One of our PB family members way way up in Canada (Blair) decided to install a system through some really thick ice in late December a few years ago and took some cool photos.

What about a piece of PVC pipe with some 1/64 holes drilled in it? Set in a sack of Quickcrete to hold it down?

Would that make the desired larger bubbles?

Membrane diffuser in deep water in summer and something simpler in shallow water for winter?

I wouldn't recommend PVC with holes ~ that will be too course and require a LOT of air. Wisconsin DNR has been unsuccessfully doing it that way for years. I think they are beginning to see that there are more efficient diffusers to keep ice open.

Interesting to know. I had wondered about that but had no personal application since generally ice coverage is not a problem so I have not tried to keep a winter diffuser running.

I have 15 years of winter experience on this subject using windmills and other intermittent forms of aeration. Besides the optimization of a diffuser/air stone/ or what a person choses for water movement, I have found its how the ice forms that's equally important. Melting ice has to a lot to do with surface area. The more area the warm water touches the faster the ice melts. Once there is an open hole in the ice it expands quickly. IME

FWIW - I have begun suspending roughed up black ABS or PVC tubes above my diffusers at the water surface before freeze up. When the windmill stops pumping, the ice forms around these the tubes. This edge between the ice and these tubes allows for a much faster hole creation once the windmill starts turning.

Mnfish I like that idea! Someone had talked about driving a pipe down in the pond bottom and leave a few feet out of the water. The sun heating it up would help open a hole as well. I will definitely be doing something along those lines this fall before I leave in September.

I just wanted to make sure which diffuser I should leave hooked up as well.

When I used to work at the aquarium we would soak the air stones in bleach to clean them.