Pond Boss Forums AERATION Should I aerate? Success but what about winter?

Thanks for the useful forum. I live on a 3/4 acre pond in Minnesota with 2 other residents in single family homes. The pond is in a chain of ponds that gets runoff from homes and a nearby golf course. When I moved in a few years ago in the spring, the pond was nice and clear. Than June came and to our horror the pond became covered with algae, Dweed and Wmeal. The pond is only 3 feet deep with at least another 3 feet of muck at the bottom. This year I took action. I ran underground 110 down to the edge. Built a little pump house and installed a Hacco 120 linear air pump. I split the air output into 2 runs of cheap underground water tubing, weighted with rerod, with 2 valves at the source. One run has an open pipe with check valve in a weighted bucket. The other has a membrane diffuser fastened to a weight tray. This setup worked great and has been running 24-7 since the beginning of June. In addition to this, I treated the pond with Sonar and a couple doses of algaecide (the cost is bearable split 3 ways with the neighbors). The result was almost a complete success (there is still some duckweed but it blows back and forth to different sides of the pond depending on wind direction). This project was directed at keeping the aesthetic beauty of an open pond all summer and it worked. There are small fish in the pond that various types of heron come to hunt, turtles and frogs and I want maintain the wild life but I do not care to farm or fish (it's too shallow anyway). There has been a noticeable reduction in muck and I want to keep this going. My question is, should I aerate through the winter? I will have to replace the pump for the winter since the Hacco will not operate in the cold.

Natureboy-

First and foremost, welcome to the forum page. If your goals for the pond are to reduce muck and aquatic weed problems, then no. Everything slows down in the winter.

Most who aerate in the winter do so to prevent winter fish kills from occuring. With the ice build up and snow cover, the pond's abilty to produce oxygen is greatly reduced. Using the aerator to keep a hole open will allow the sun to penetrate and aid in oxygen production through photosynthesis. Secondly it will aid in the release of the gases that have the potential of killing fish like hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide.

The only limiting factor in your pond is the shallow depths. With no deeper areas for the fish to hide from cooler water, winter aeration may not be the best choice for your pond.

There are many discussions on this and I hope ewest will be able to post those links for your benefit. Secondly, Ted Lea with Forevergreen has a great deal of experience in winter aeration and he may chime in as well.

Again, good luck and welcome.

Welcome Natureboy and thanks Cary for all the good aeration input. All the winter aeration threads I recall are wrt fish survival. I can find them if you like. At 3 feet deep in Minn. I would think the pond would freeze solid. Here is one.

http://www.pondboss.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=12;t=000044

On the DW/WM issue if there is any left get it out with a net or however. Some types can double in vol. every 24 hrs.