Pond Boss Forums AERATION Systems questions Fountain question

Your pond water with 16"-18" of visibility / transparency means light is only penetrating and algae making dissolved oxygen to around 3ft - 3.5ft. Aeration would be beneficial in this pond depending on what is causing the transparency; be it mostly silt/detritus and/or plankton. .


210gpm is 12600gph. 4,480,400g/12600g/h = 355hours/24h= 14.8days running the fountain 24/7 to get one pond turnover. However there could be an oxygenated refuge in the area around the fountain - depending. IMO do not buy that fountain for any measurable aeration benefit for the outer reaches of the one acre pond. This is especially true if you do not run it 24/7. Typically fountains are only good for mixing and aerating the same water over and over in the near-by vicinity of the fountain. They basically mix the same water over and over and do not spread the water currents outward away from the fountain unit. Water is sprayed upward until mean Ol'Mr. Gravity has the water fall straight back down around the fountain. Mostly a energy force/push downward - little if any outward water spread. Watch how it works and the resulting water movement. IMO if you pull deep water to the surface, this mixed blended water will stay in the vicinity of the fountain. Deep water is significantly colder more dense and will tend to sink back downward below the fountain. Thermal and DO testing will prove this. However the fountain will be pretty and nice to look at. Pretty things including women cost money. Often lots of money for the visual and personal pleasure.

I think your estimate is very close to the actual summer thermocline depth close to 6ft. That depth in my testing is very often the natural summer wind mixing depth of small ponds.

Ok everyone, wife still gets her fountain, but it’s just for the looks, she and me, want to enjoy looking out the windows and seeing a fountain. I am going to install aeration after the fountain is installed, here is my question. The electrician is coming out in a week or two to run electrical to the pond, he is going to trench two hundred feet about 2ft deep. He suggested going on ahead and bury the airline now in the same trench as the electrical, I am going to run 1” airline. I have been looking for line and see where some members use 1” ADS line, is this line plastic tubing or is it a rubber hose? Do I need to put it in conduit or pvc pipe? On its run to the pond it’s going under a gravel driveway, and there is some rock in the ground and I don’t want anything to pinch or cut the line. Reason for this question is pulling rubber coated hose thru pvc or conduit might be a little rough, just not sure what ADS is and I am about 30 min. drive to box store to check it
Thanks, Gregg

One more question, this one is probably for Essup, do you sell any compressors that are outdoor rated, I really don’t want it at the pond, but the wife doesn’t want the noise from it by the house. If they make any that has a pleasing look I will install it there, just don’t want a shed spoiling the view

They all have to be "in a shed" so to speak, protected from the rain/snow. Vertex systems are in a powder coated aluminum box, and a sound deadening kit can be installed at the factory that drops the noise to the same decibel reading as a normal conversation or slightly less. The box is on a roughly 30" square plastic pad like you'd see under an air conditioning coil, and the box itself is maybe 20"x20"x16" tall. That's for one a pond your size. They are meant to be installed outside.

Thank you Esshup, sounds like that’s the route for me to go, can I call you at your place of business and disscuss what all I am going to purchase. The electrician is going to run 10 gauge wire to the pond, with you system, will that size wire handle the compressor, fountain (about 7 amp ) and led lights for fountain? If I need to up grade wiring to 8 gauge, then I guess that’s what I’ll do. This is going to be wired for 110 v

When running it shouldn't draw more than 3.8 amps. I sent you a pm. Talk to the electrician, the wire size depends on how many feet the electric has to run, undersized wire has toasted more compressors than I can count. One customer had the wire so small that the ground was actually too hot to touch after the electrician dug down to expose the wire to troubleshoot why the compressor kept failing.

You definitely want to run your airline in the trench with the electrical. The trenching will cost much more than the pipe.

You want black "poly pipe" for your application. Generally, it only costs a little bit more to get thicker pipe. Even though you will not be operating at high pressures, it may be worth it for the durability to move up from pipe rated for 100 psi to pipe rated for 160 psi.

This type of pipe does NOT need to be in conduit. I don't think(?) even the gravel in the driveway would be a problem. However, if you are worried, you could pour a couple of sacks of sand in the driveway crossing trench after you have installed the electrical and air lines.

For your electrical work, the electrician should size your wiring to experience a voltage drop of less than 3% at the motors. That is dependent on the amps being drawn, the length of the wire, and the gauge of the wire.

Some electrical motors require significantly more "starting" amps than "running" amps. For example, the compressor unit for your home air conditioner draws so many amps at start-up, that there is a capacitor in the unit to provide the required electrical boost.

I do NOT know if the aeration compressor or the fountain have significantly higher "starting" electrical draws. Hopefully, esshup or one of our other experts can address that issue.

There is a capacitor on the aeration compressors but I just SWAG and say 2x running amp is starting amp.

1/2 hp "120v" Vertex running amp is 3.8 amps. So, for you who are smarter in the electric world than I am, what is the starting amp draw?

(No claim at all to being smart in the electric world, just throwing in my two cents.)

esshup, do you buy enough equipment that your sales rep would forward an email to one of the manufacturer's engineers? I think that would get the best answer as to the start-up amp draw, or if the spike is so quick as to be inconsequential to designing the sizing of the electrical line.

As regards the starting draw: As voltage supplied to a motor drops, then the amps must increase to perform the same work. This is generally a linear relationship. As long as the motor is still within its nameplate rating for current, then that should not create a problem. Once a motor runs for a significant time above the amp rating, excessive heat typically becomes a problem - and that will certainly shorten the life of the motor.

For start ups where there is significant mechanical resistance (like starting a compressor piston), that typically creates a starting draw that is higher than the running draw. The electrical engineers have lots of different terms to describe this additional torque load on the motor but that is miles above my pay grade. However, those loads are usually NOT linear. They typically have a square function, therefore in the case of high start-up torque, running the voltage below the design volume pays a much larger penalty.

However, I am glad to hear that your aeration compressors have a capacitor. It sounds to me that the actual experts that designed the compressors came up with an elegant solution to the problem we are discussing. Further, even if the voltage at the motor drops by more than 3% at start up and creates a little excess heat, that should be fine as the motor quickly transitions to the "running" amperage draw. I expect cycling the system on and off multiple times per hour would be the only damaging thing to do.

esshup, have you ever put on your tester when a compressor or motor was going bad? If the compressor piston started having excess friction as it was approaching failure, then the motor would be drawing more amps for the wasted "work". If the electrical wire was designed right at the design limit, then the voltage drop across the system would further exacerbate the problem. You would experience some hot wires and hot motors exactly as you have stated. When the motors are approaching failure do they typically draw significantly more amps?

Gpugh, can you ask your seller if your fountain pump includes a capacitor in the system? If you have a very long (and expensive) electric line run, perhaps you could install a capacitor in the system near your two devices? There is a chance that would be cheaper than paying for heavier gauge wire. (That is a NON-expert opinion. Be sure to ask your electrician.)

esshup,

I also forgot to ask about failures in the polypipe systems you have installed or worked on.

For pipe rated much higher than the system operating pressure, have you observed any pipe failures due to the materials? Or do you see damage only from rodents chewing, humans digging/plowing, etc.?

Fish rod, I contacted the manufacturer (Anjon Mfg) and they told me that the motor is (hope I am spelling this correctly) an Asynchronous motor, meaning the start up and run are the same, 4.5 amps, doesn’t need a start up cap. I have never heard of that type of motor, wonder why they don’t use them in more applications.
After contacting Esshup, I have decided to just run the electrical to the pond and forgo running 200 ft of airline. I have to run wiring to the pond for the fountain, so I will upgrade the wiring to 10/3 gauge and hopefully save me a headache later on down the road in case I get an air leak somewhere under ground.
I really appreciate all the help here from everybody. If anybody is thinking of installing an aeration system, I HIGHLY recommend you get in contact with Esshup, he is very knowledgeable and super helpful, that’s where I will be purchasing my system. If there is anything that I am not seeing that I need to address, please let me know, I am an amateur at setting this up.
Thanks everybody

Awesome.

Happy wife, happy life! I hope she enjoys the fountain.

If running power all of the way to the pond, there are people that have added all kinds of conveniences. Such as LED lights on the dock, a 120V outlet with a GFI to have power for stuff at your dock, and many more things that I can't recall right now.

If you do go over the capacity of your line, you can always turn off your fountain or aeration pump for a while if you need a few extra amps for something else.

FishinRod, that’s my thought exactly. Heck, I gotta run power for the fountain, might as well just set up the compressor at the ponds edge verses having it 200ft away at the house. Like you said, happy wife, happy life, though I kinda want a fountain also!

We just use the low pressure stuff. It's rated way over what pressure the aeration compressors are putting out, which is typically 5-10 psi.

The only failure that I've seen is in 3/8" poly that was chewed by what I think was a mole. I have had poly pipe come apart at the junctions where it was put together with a barbed fitting, but only in a watering system where psi was 30-60 with no hose clamp on the connection. Never had a failure of 1" poly in an aeration system (yet).

Thanks esshup.

Your results match up with what I have heard from other guys that use it a lot (for businesses other than ponds).

I've lived in Misery long enough to learn that the cheap black plastic farmer pipe is going to fail. It's not a question of it, but of when.

Upgrade to the blue poly stuff. It costs a little more but you won't have to replace it every 5-10 years.

That said, you're already running electric to the pond so probably would be easier and less costly to put the compressor at the pond
and skip the exercise of running airline from your house/barn/workshop. It would be easy enough to calculate the costs to determine that.