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#32677 10/06/05 03:08 PM
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I have a 3/4 acre pond, that's 12' deep, and has a single bottom diffuser that I'm running only at night now. At what average night or day temps should I leave it off?

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MFork - I would stop aerating in mid November. By mid November in southern IN your surface water temps should be around 44F - 48F. You can verify this by taking your own water temps. At these temps and with continued cooler and windier weather your pond will be able to easily mix completely top to bottom on its own. By late Nov or early Dec your pond should be in full turnover condition (homoiothermic) and completely mixing whenever you have decent wind action. Surface water warming during warm days during this period will be short term and recooling and convection currents will occur at nite.


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Bill, you sound like you understand this quite well. I have had good luck running my bottom diffuser all winter but only 8 hours a day. My situation is different I guess from you or Muddy since I live in central MN where the ice gets 2 feet thick on pond. Do your ponds stay open all winter? I feel I need to aerate if only so that I don't get fatal buildup of things like ammonia in pond. When it gets real cold I can only keep a 6 inch hole open but at least the aerator gets gases out. I'd like to stop running the thing all winter but don't know if I want to mess with what's been working.


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The easy answer to winter aeration is to move the diffuser to shallow water of 3 to 4 feet. This prevents pumping cold air into the water. If placed near the shorline, this also makes it somewhat safer for any human or animal falling through the thin ice or hole that you will have.

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bz - generally speaking, the further south one lives the less need there is for aeration in winter. Snow accumulation on ice is th emain problem causing winter kill in northern US. BZ where you live the snow build up is your main enemy for causing winter kills. The build up of harmful gasses under the ice is due primarily to plant death and accumulative organic decompostion due to lack of oxygen production which in turn are due to lack of light penetration and abundant snow cover over the ice. Take note that aeration will not remove ammonia from the water. Aeration will allow some benthic gasses such a methane and hydrogen sulfide to escape during ice cover.

Aeration can increase the chance of open water during ice cover that allows sunlight penetration and microscopic and or benthic plant activity. Snow removal from the pond produces the same benefit. A PB forum member WOOD proved that snow removal was adequate for a northern Canada trout pond with 3 ft of ice cover during winter of 2004-05. See his post below.


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Bill, wish I had the guts to experiment and turn the aerator off and just plow the snow. I gotta believe that letting light in to accomplish the same thing is highly dependent upon a number of other conditions. For instance biological load. If Wood's pond was small with a lot of fish it may not have worked I would guess. I originally ran aeration because that's what "experts" told me I needed. I have a lot of fish. Can I assume while aeration may be overkill it is the "safe" approach?


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bz, you make a valid point regarding the impact of bod on whether winter aeration is necessary, and I do not know the answer in your specific instance. I did over-winter trout for two years successfully with only snow removal (and lots of it). My pond is less than a quarter acre with around a 100 trout from 12" to 16" at that time. My pond is also only about three years old which I believe helped. I did get around 200 days of ice cover and no fish kill.

I have since moved my family north and have rented my property (and pond) to a young couple. The husband seemed quite enthusiastic about fishing and pond maintenance. Last winter he was instructed to remove snow as part of the "deal" if he wanted to have fish to catch.
He, however did not and this spring all fish were dead. I realize you do not want to experiment and risk loosing your fish, but it did work for me.

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bz - Here is my opinion about your situation. I don't think BOD will be excessive unless snow cover causes extensive plant death. People under estimate the the ability of plants to produce adequate oxygen providing they are receiving adequate sunlight. Snow removel is used by numerous lake management groups to maintain healthy DO conditions in waters too big to aerate. I think your existing winter aeration method works primarily because it keeps enough of an water surface exposed to sunlight that the winter plant commumity produces enough DO to keep fish alive. Aeration does help circulate the oxygenated water to extended areas of the pond. If your system works then stay with it. If it breaks down use snow removal as a backup procedure.

HINT: If you have a heavy fish load in the pond, consider that the biomass may be too high during winter conditions and crowding stress may take a toll of your prize fish when conditions are "right". YOu may want to use the autumn or first ice to remove some fish for table use to reduce chance of fish over-load problems. Thinning the numbers should also allow more forage items to be present during stressful winter conditions.


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Good idea about removing fish. Since I do have a lot of fish I figured that might help so I have been catching and eating quite a few and I've been trapping many crappies out. Yes I did the unthinkable back before I knew any better and put a few crappie in. They do multiply fast so I trap 400 to 500 out every year. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that things to well this winter again. It it does my BG should grow to over a pound next year. I really want to make it that far.


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OK thanks.
I'll check it through November until my surface water temps get to around 44F - 48F then I'll shut it down for the year.
I have another question. Should I run it during the day or night right now? The temps during the day are about 70 and the nights are 50.

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Muddy Fork,

There have been other topics if you do a search, for winter aeration. In those topics they discuss moving your air stones/diffuser to shallow water and letting it run there until spring. Then move it back deep. Just a thought.

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I've seen that, but I would think that doesn't apply to us in southern IN since we're lucking if we get enough ice to ice fish one day here before it melts off again and we always have a breeze. I figure running at night like I was told to do in the spring still applies in the fall, but I was just curious.

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Gotcha. Sorry, I forgot to look where you were.


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