Hello, my 3/4 acre pond in Northern Ohio has WE, YP, RES, GSH, Bluntnose & Spotfin minnows. Built in the fall of 09, I have never turned off my windmill aerator. I've read a few post that promote evening aeration during the summer and would like to know the parameters of this act if someone cares to reply. Thanks

Do you have a way of measuring the water temp in your pond? Daytime aeration in warm weather can raise the average temp of your pond, and cooler water preferring species like WE and YP can get stressed (or potentially die) in too warm of water.

How deep is your pond, and how deep is your deep diffuser? You can run aeration during the heat of summer if you are able to maintain a thermocline, where cooler, less oxygenated water exists. They cant live there, but they can escape the heat temporarily.

Get yourself a pool thermometer and a removable weight. Take readings from about 16" deep, again at half the depth of the pond and then at the deepest area. If you're finding a significant variance in temps from top to bottom, then you may be ok, if that coolest water is conducive to WE.

If your summer diffuser is set on the bottom at depth, you may need to elevate it on a platform, relocate it shallower, or you may have to switch to running an early morning schedule (4am-10am). That too depends on how long it takes to turn your pond over with one diffuser.

When dug, it was 15' to 16' deep and I need to stick it again. The diffuser is set in 9' of water at one end. I will follow your instructions Mike W and thanks. I have a pool and in 2012 & 13 I tied the used ones off my dock and in less than a month all marking were wiped clean.

With your diffuser set in 9 feet, there's a good possibility that you may have a thermocline in the deepest part of the pond, but you wont know until you get some graduated temp readings top to bottom. A pool thermometer, railroad spike and some nylon cord work well. You can adjust the depth by setting the weight on the bottom and adjust the depth of the thermometer to the depth you want to test. I would check every foot until you find the depth where the greatest temp change occurs. That's how deep your transition is. But that change may be minimal and may not leave your fish much area to escaped. Regardless, you may still need to change run times to early morning to keep from overheating the pond.

Again, they wont be able to live down there, but they can escape the warmer water temps for a short period.

...should my diffuser be in the deepest area during the summer and then start temp readings?

I'd leave it where it is and take some readings first. See if you have a thermocline in your deepest area they can retreat to. If you dont have a thermocline, then you can adjust run schedule and duration accordingly.

This is one of those "It Depends" questions big time. lol. I for one do not run my air during the day. My pond is only 10 feet max and I believe I have enough of that good old chara to keep my D.O. levels right during the day. Plus it saves some on my pump and my pocket book but if I felt I had to I would make no mistake about this we end up getting way to much invested to end up with a possible fish kill for a few bucks electricity. I would be concerned about your WE as well if water temps get to high for them. I don't have that issue really even my HSB seem fine in my pond. I run my air 10 hours a night and I have a lot of fish for a 1 acre pond and I have not had any problems in 9 years knock on wood!! lol, I am NOT telling you to do this but it's what I do and it's worked for me. You got to find what works for you and your pond for sure! Not everything other people do will work. As Bill Cody says!! "It all depends" and a lot of that comes with trial and error that's for sure!!

RC

Yeah...last week we had a cold front, LOL, that made the highs 85. That's about where our pond is on average with night-time aeration. I let it run all day. Since then, the pond has cleared a lot...did I offer the daytime plankton bloom to my heavy load of extra bacteria? Did I re-distribute more bottom organics into fresh ravenous bottom bacteria? Anyway, the pond is looking good, like an emerald as the last hour of sun rays hit it. And seeing fish swim around, and seeing a few bass that eat the food make killer strikes. And the two biggest channels, about ten pounds at just over two years...lipped hook collectors! Back near 100, I'm back to night-time. I've never skipped a night-time aeration...but, if lows at 7 am were gonna be 80, I might.

Keep in mind that an aerated pond , while having temp differences at depth, may not have a DO problem even at the coolest depth. If this is the case (no problem to fix) then do not change what you have been doing. Fish species have different DO tolerances and can adjust by changing depth moving in and out of a true thermocline to reach a 2 way balance (DO and temps).

Not to hijack here but here goes. Your thoughts?

I just returned from a 10 days vacation @ White River Ark. And returned to find one of my diffusers was not kicking up any bubbles from my 6 diffuser kasco RA system. This diffuser sets in the bottom of a 12' depth section of the pond. This section is what I might call a pond within a pond. It is an area where a 100yd roadbed separates it from approx. 2 acres of an open water area of the pond. This roadbed is 12' wide and has 6 foot water on top of it and 10 foot on the other side of the rd bed. Two other sides of the pool blends into about an acre of 6' water and the 4th side of this pool is a steep shoreline. I would say this pool is 100yds by 50yds. I have not checked the water temp in this pool area because I just discovered this yesterday. However the water temp at last check was 87 top to bottom with the six diffusers running nights 10pm to 9am. I am thinking I might just shut off this deep area diffuser while under repair and see if a thermocline develops if it has not already done so. What are your thoughts on this guys?