Pond Boss Forums AERATION Systems questions DC to AC for water pump

Probably like many of your members Im struggling whether to put in a mains line or use solar power.My pond is about 100 yrds from the mains and across wetlands etc. I have had success with a DC solar panel on another small pond but would like to develop the principle for this larger pond. My problem is that the DC motors I have found so far are fairly limited in their power and I believe have a fairly short live span thus making AC the way to go. The question is does it make sense to put an inverter in the system or are you going to lose too much power. I was thinking of using two 75 watt dc panels.

Hello Osymandius (wow that's a keyboard full) and welcome to Pond Boss.

Ahh the age old question, to solar or not to solar. Depends (in my untrained, uneducated, unsolicited opinion) on several things. DC air pumps won't develop any where near enough flow at enough pressure to deliver air at much of a depth.

How big is your pond in terms of both surface area and depth?

What is the basic shape of your pond?

You can run air lines fairly far (I believe up to 1,000 feet or so) so you might be able to have the pump near the power source and just run the air lines the 300 feet fo the pond. The advantage of this is that you can then get a good pump and not worry about running power lines (just air lines).

Getting enough solar equipment (panels, batteries, wiring, charge controller, inverter, etc, etc) to power a decent AC pump using solar is EXPENSIVE.

Anyway, get us some info on the pond size and depth and I'm sure on of the experts will give you some feedback.

Its a circular pond about 1/5 of an acre. It was an old farm pond and had almost reached the point of disappearing, but after 2 years of work of clearing the banks and having it dug out it looks as if it might work. I stocked this spring with FH and BGs and now debating whether to stock with LMB in the fall or wait until next spring. It is fed by an underground spring that doesn't kick in until late in the fall when the ground finally gets saturated and then there is a good flow out until late spring. There was additional seepage but Im hoping that this will stabilize over the next year.From what I can see, in wetter times the spring flow was above ground and it looks as if the water used to flow over rocks into the pond. What I was planning to do was to dig out the spring so it flows on the surface and then when it dries up recirculate the water over the rocks.
I understand that this is not the most efficient aeration system, but as the pond is somewhat sheltered by trees from the sun I dont think low oxygen levels are a problem...yet

How deep is the pond? Deepest depth and average depth?

sorry I misssed that. Its current deepest point is 5 ft, and that is consistent around the edge so probably about 60 pc is at that depth. There is a ridge where the excavator couldn't reach which is about 2 feet deep.This is well covered with weed and the FHs seem to have moved in and breeding well.This overall depth will increase by about 4 ft during the winter, but then the ice must get at least 18 inches in thickness

osymandius, actually low O2 may become a problem sooner than later "since you are"sheltered by trees which equates to windblock and more natural organic matter from the trees. Being sheltered from the sun will lower oxygen levels faster than full sun with out the trees.Jeff is correct about running a single tube in your situation 300 ft is not a problem.(somewhere between 3000-5000 ft of tube we would reconsider)You would only need a small system that would give you 1-2 turns per day, Im not sure what the dc to ac conversion would cost but you can probably can do an entire system with the trunk line for less than conversion and or solar would cost plus youll still need most of the same basic system . If your KW cost is in the 12 cent range figure $19.00 per month to run 24/7, I also sent you a PM