If I knew it wouldn't jinx me, I would say I have now "seen it all" in my pond.....

I have six Vertex aerators in my BOW that have been in place for almost 9 years. I do a fairly decent job of maintaining my system so I was somewhat shocked to see a set of air bubbles in an area with no aeration. I set out in my nifty little Twin Prowler to investigate and quickly discern the bubbles are emanating from the weighted air line feeding one of the aerators. The aerator it was feeding was in relatively shallow water and easy to retrieve so I pulled it up and started pulling air line into the boat until I got to the point of the leak. The pics speak for themselves; and is usual for me, I am baffled. As I said the lines have been in place for almost 9 years and I have never had any issues with weighted line leaking, much less some varmint chewing on them...at least none that I am aware of.. The line was down in about six feet of water.

So, I am curious to know if anyone else has had any issues with something chewing on their weighted line?

I am not sure what varmint it is. The teeth marks look to narrow to me for it to be a beaver although I know I have them here...I haven't seen any muskrat lately but have had those critters here too in the past. Any ideas?

I would say beaver by the width of the two teeth marks. I doubt you would see marks over 1/2" wide from a muskrat. Muskrats are supposed to top out between 4 to 5 pounds, but I did trap some that were closer to 7 pounds. That was an area that nobody had trapped for a LONG time, and due to the lack of predators the majority of muskrats had tooth marks on their backs - this was mid November, not early Spring when breeding season is.

Another reason to keep the rodents out of your pond.........

Thanks Esshup...have you ever had them chew on your weighted aeration lines, particularly those that are 6 ft underwater? BTW, if you blow up the pic, you'll see marks, each about 1/4" wide, for three teeth. I thought Beaver only had two upper and two lower "front" teeth? I've had 330's out for them for a couple of weeks now but no luck thus far....of course, I've never claimed to be a proficient trapper either.

Nope, never had that problem. You are correct, they both have two upper and two lower teeth.

I've got an adult female beaver my dad had mounted when he trapped for the state about 45 years ago and each tooth is about right at 1/2"...each, about 1-1/16" across both. Bottom teeth are about 3/4" wide across both.. Maybe just a big-azz beaver but I would have guessed Muskrat at slightly less than 1/4" a tooth.
EDIT: Beaver teeth width range from .53" to 1.57", most commonly, adults of 2 years average 1.15-1.2" per North American Trappers Journal..

Esshup, I just don’t get it. As I said, the system has been in for a long time running 24/7; and, I’ve had plenty of critters here before and never had this happen. Wonder if I am getting some sort of weird harmonics off one of the pumps or a valve?

Snipe, thanks for your response

Those marks are 'precision' grinded, all of them perfectly even and a perfect line in between. One observation of things that occur in nature is that they never occur in precise, laser cut, straight lines. Natural wear, the path of a river, the score marks on a tree from antlers, glacier grind marks on rocks are somewhat uneven.

If you ever are looking for a lost arrow in the dead leaves on the forest floor your eye may catch an unusually even coloration of the arrow shaft since nature has variations of dark and not a perfect shade all of the same color, or you may spot it since it is exactly straight laying on a forest floor with lots of uneven lines (leaves, sticks, cracks in the soil)

You can see that the air leak actually comes from a spot on the pipe where there is a deeper unusual crevice/crack (flex or wear and tear?) Then the erosion marks are in a spot a bit distant from the crack. Those erosion marks and the straight line ridge in between look like something besides a random gnawing mark.

But then what would lie against it or rub against it?

Canyon, its on a soft muddy bottom and hasnt been moved in 9 years. I noticed the first two 'gnaws' werent as deep as the third one which created the 'flap'. Im guessing when 'it' did its third bite, it was deeper and and got a blast of air when it gnawed through the line and retreated....but that's just an hypothesis with no scientific data points involved.

That is just weird.

I don't have beavers as this appears to be a possibility but I did get several of my stones munched and busted via some large snapping turtles. Vertex said it is not uncommon as they seem drawn to the bubbles. With nothing but the air vibrations, I wonder if that drew this particular critter down in the much to the vibrating hose? Like Snub says, "just weird." LOL.

dhadam, not sure. The place they chewed was about 50' or so away from the aerator itself

I had the same thing happen at my pond about 4 yrs ago. The chewed spot in the line was about 10" from the shoreline. I saw bubbles coming up and that is what alerted me to the problem. I soon discovered I had a beaver in the pond. Wound up being my first trapping experience using the Conibar 330 to remove the beaver. I am betting a dollar to a donut that you have a beaver