I dug a pond 10 years ago and I am planning changes, but need help.
My pond is 1/3 acre with a 25-30' deep center (It was 30' when dug)
The main pond has no protection for small fish, other than low visibility.
Here are the 3 things I want to do ASAP.

1. Cut trees and shrubs and locate them in areas shown to give some small fish shelter.
2. In areas show add PVC pipe or what you recommend for catfish breeding. Currently, there is nothing in the pond.
3. Aerate my pond. I plan to take my compressor, weight an open air hose to the bottom and put it on a timer.
15 minutes every 12 hours for a couple of day, then every couple of days increase.
15 minutes every 6 hours
15 minutes every 4 hours
15 minutes every 2 hours

Are there any reasons I should not do any of these things to my pond?
Thanks you!

Question. What the reasoning behind having the depth at 30 foot? Is it used for something else other than fishing?

Hoping to use it for geothermal cooling some day. That was the thought anyway. The pond is dug out in solid clay. It holds water and is solid!
I would like to have some structure in the deep, but I need to eventually be able to aerate it and make the deep attractive to some fish if possible.

Is your aeration schedule based on using your shop compressor?

If so, I suspect it is not fit for purpose.

My advice would be to start a separate thread outlining the expected fish population of the pond and your aeration needs.

Good luck,
FishinRod

Ok, I was thinking more to aerate to help mix the pond up. I read here somewhere about lower layers of the pond can get toxic.

I explained my point very poorly.

Your relatively small, yet very deep pond will almost certainly benefit from aeration.

I could not tell from your post if you were planning to use your shop compressor for your aeration. I did not want you to burn up a good high pressure - low volume compressor.

Your pond aeration compressor will be low pressure - high volume from a much smaller HP motor. (Although at your depth you may need a little higher pressure than some of our other pond applications.)

I am NOT an aeration expert. However, if you post a question with lots of information about your situation in the Aeration forum, there are dozens of experts that may drop in to give you some good answers.

The open end of the air hose will not create enough lift to properly aerate the pond.

1.) Bramble placed in the pond will provide shelter for the younger fish.
2.) Are you sure you want CC breeding? Ladder stocking them is a common method of controlling populations. Breeding beds will promote a self sustaining pond, but could get out of hand. This is difficult to access, I know...just food for thought.
3.) Shop compressors are not efficient in pond aeration. It is hard on the compressor, cost more to operate, and may lead to oil sheens in the pond. Oil will get carried in the air stream if it is not an oil free compressor.

Bringing up the aeration slowly, but not too slow, is a smart thing. The rule of thumb here at PB is to turn the whole pond over at least once a day. Shooting for the ability's to turn it over a few times a day is a good place to start the system design. This way you can run only at night (or day) should you chose and still get the turn over in a day. Starting and stopping the system for 15 minute runs will reduce it's effectiveness. Every time it stops. the momentum of the water movement slows to a near stop too and the system has to get it all moving again. Plan to bring it up slowly to a point where it runs for several hours at at time / once a day.

Common practice is to start it up the first day for 15 minutes and smell for "the stink". If it starts to stink, STOP. Try again the next day with hopes of getting a longer run and so on. If NO stink, just double the run time daily until you get to the run length you want/need. We can get into system design if you are so inclined to step away from the open hose run by the compressor. That is not a good way to go.

I may have some by mid summer I can throw in. I will start with what I have now. Shrubs, but no thorns.

I am going to have them connected together loosely with lines and with a line tied off onshore. I will be able to removed the breeding tubes if necessary.

I was thinking about using an old shop compressor, but I may have to go a different route.
I may take the suggestion and post this question in the Aeration forum as well.

Thanks everyone for comments so far.