First, I understand that pond aeration is not about aeration but about getting surface and bottom water to circulate. With that said, is there any hope that putting a waterfall/stream feature on my pond could get me all, some, or no circulation?

The pond in question is 2/3 acre and realtively deep throughout (8-11 feet) for 80% of it. It sits at the bottom of a 200 foot hill with a 7-8% grade. Would pumping out from the bottom at the far end, having it run 50-75 feet down the hill (over rocks) generate any kind of circulation? Is there different way to approach that could work?

This waterfall might be something I do regardless for asthetics, but if I could kill two birds with one stone...

I'm spitballing here so all thoughts are welcomed!

Sure it will help. Now whether or not the pump and resulting electricity charges will fit your budget is another story.

To get all of the circulation you will need (1 turn of the water per 24 hour period) you will need the following:

You will want to make the "stream" bounce over rocks, not flow down a "slide" to the pond. You will need a pump that can pump at least 65,000 gallons per hour at the head that you are looking at starting the stream at above the pond. It's best to suck the water from the very deepest part of the pond. i.e. if you are looking at starting the stream 12' above the pond surface, you need a pump that will pump 65,000 gph @ 12' head.

To move the same amount of water (or more) with a bottom diffusion system you will need a single Vertex diffuser placed in the deepest part of the pond and will need to run a 1/3 hp compressor that has a t least 2 cfm at 0 psi. Something along the lines of a Vertex Air 1 system or a PondLyfe 1 system. With a single Vertex membrane diffuser placed at the 11 foot depth you will move roughly 105,000 gph.

I'll let you do the math to see what would be cheaper to run for say 5 years even if the Vertex pump needs a roughly $100 rebuild after year 4.

A quick, and not very thorough, internet search for pumps that move equivalent amounts of water as the bottom diffusers claim... indicates that the initial investment of just the pump would in the thousands of dollars. Doable? Yes, but how much can one's wallet take? I think a waterfall that "bounces" the water excessively could reduce the pump size since the aeration would be taking place on the massively increased surface area of the droplets compared to just bringing the deep water to the surface of the pond. The pump cost is still going to be considerably high compared to a diffuser based system.

I may ultimately install a much smaller "stream" but you've made it clear that it is a very ineffcient way to circulate water.

esshup-
Do you have recommendations on solar powered bottm diffusion system? I can do a build-it-yourself but a complete bundle may also be worth it.

I have no recommendations, sorry. The solar systems that I would be comfortable with would need batteries large enough to run the system at night when O2 is needed the most. Most solar systems that I have seen cost 4-7 times as much as a comparable grid based system, so even if a person has to trench in airline underground a long ways, it's still more cost effective to go grid based. We have trenched in airline over 1/2 mile to get air to a pond.......

If there is no electric at the property, see how much it would cost to get it run, then do the price comparison between that and a solar system.

Yeah, I’m not going 4-7 times the cost. I saw the higher prices but hoped I was missing something. I’m building out in the property in 1-2 years so will just need to be patient. If there are any smaller incremental and inexpensive things to do that help with aeration I’d be interested.

If you have a good idea where the house will be built, you might be able to run electric to an "H: frame that has a meter and power shut off on it, then tie into that with a small breaker box for power at the property until you build the house. Having power there while the house is being built will make it a bit easier on the builder too.

1997pond, I am using a diy solar air lift setup that moves a lot of water horizontally , I can't tell you how much water it moves I don't even know how they measure that. It uses a little 60 watt DC air pump. you might look up airlift pumps, thats where I got my inspiration.

I researched getting power down ~1,200 feet to the future house site (near pond) and would be paying for something that the power company will do for free once I build. It isn’t worth it to me. Running a compressed airline was an option you previously suggested and decided against doing a build that I would be partially taking down and rebuilding.

Of course building the house does mean that I have to wait for 2x4s to no longer be $100 a piece.

Do waterfalls and the water disrupting and bubbling (from splashing) the water add any "turnover" factor in addition to how much water the pump actually moves itself? For example, if I had a 4550 GPH water pump and just had it flowing back into another part of the pond, I'd use 4550 GPH in my water turnover calculations. But, If I had it running off rocks or something similar and "splashing" into the water, does that help or increase the water turnover and/or air movement in the pond? If so, approximately how much does it help? Thanks

Yes if you are sucking the water from the deepest part of the pond. If not, then not really.

Our waterfalls on four year old pond. The "river" completed in 2020, is fed by a 1 hp underwater pump and a 1 1/2 hp pool pump. It is dropping about fifteen feet over a length of 100 feet. Needless to say, if rocks were not free, the river could not exist. The pumps pull from the deep at the other end of the pond.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm4RULk7q04

Beautiful waterfall DannyMac. Did you build this yourself?

Dean

Does the deep water stratify & go anoxic in the summer? I'm guessing you aerate so this is not a problem. Sure would be for me!

You could look into doing what I did for my fridge in my camp trailer (and what I may do for my pond pump, once I get one). I used two 100ah deep cycle 12v AGM batteries and a 2,000 watt AIMS inverter/charger. I hooked up two 100watt solar panels to a 30a solar charge controller, which were enough to charge the batteries from 50% back to 100%, in about 8 hours. I could run the fridge on the batteries for about 3 days, before they drained to 50%. Therefore, the panels could keep the fridge running throughout the day, and top off the batteries. Then the system just used the batteries to run the inverter and power the fridge through the night. If I had shore power, I could also plug the inverter into that, and it acted as a much quicker battery charger, while passing power through to the fridge itself, essentially taking the batteries out of the loop.

You could do the same with a pond pump. Just calculate how much solar power you need to run the pump and charge your battery bank, then I would work in a 3X factor, in case you have a few cloudy days in a row. You could also match the size of your inverter to the power needs of your pump.

Inverter/charger I used - https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01E3V66ZE/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I'm going to have to break out my old electric textbooks and knock off a lot of rust to do the math, but will give it a shot.

It may be a longer path to get to back to where esshup started.

A fridge compressor cyces on/off based on temp where an air pump is running continuously so the battery and recharging needs are significantly higher. Even if I can DIY something at 25% of a packaged solar solution, I'm right back to the cost of a packaged grid solution. Since I'm likely doing a DIY grid solution which will be cheaper still, it's tough to justify beyond a cool and fun project.

My undergrad was in aerospace engineering, but since I'm not trying to make my pond fly I'll have to bring in my electrical engineer father for adult project supervision.