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#508069 06/24/19 04:12 PM
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Had anyone seen these Tibean aerators before? They are made for large lakes and reservoirs. Seems like a design that could be made small for a pond. Has anyone made anything similar for trout aeration below the thermocline?


https://canadianpond.ca/product/tibean-hypolimnetic-deep-water-aerators/

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I joined this forum because of the discussion on hypolimnetic aeration:

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=225862

I don't think many pond owners have the need for this type of aeration, but I do. However, I could never find an adequate design and wasn't thrilled with running electric 60 feet down.

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The Tibean system appears to be relatively simple. Aerator in/under a pipe to carry water up, surrounded by a larger pipe. At the surface it boils out of the inner pipe into the larger one which takes it back down below the thermocline.

Plastic culvert pipe seems like it could work.

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It would appear that most of the dissolved oxygen would be coming from the bubbles as there would be minimal water surface exposure to the atmosphere. Minimal atmosphere exposure is, obviously, key so that the temperature is not increased...I wonder how many more diffusers one would need compared to our common bottom diffuser set-up?


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While that is correct, we would also only be trying to aerate a smaller volume of water.
This picture shows the two styles of systems I was able to find. I think I could make the one on the left using a plastic concrete footing tube and a 55 gallon plastic barrel.

12" & 24" pipes or culverts are not cheap.

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I'm going to give this a try. Going to use the 12" footing tube as the up right tube and have that go up inside a 55 gallon drum.

Might use 2 55 gallon drums. Plan is for the bottom of the tube to be 1-1.5' off the bottom. Vertex diffuser under it. Then 3 or 4" pvc pipes out of the bottom of the barrel to spread the water out.

The commercial versions appear to catch all the leftover air and release it above water level. I was trying to think of a way to release it underwater, above the thermocline, to get additional circulation from the air. Any ideas?

This will be set in 14-15' of water, the deepest spot in my pond.

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Which of the versions will yours be most like, "A" or "B"?...



OK, I went back and see that you are looking at "A" to mimic....

What would happen if you terminated the bubble vent tube below the water surface, maybe with a big flow control valve? The air that the diffuser releases would travel up the bubble vent tube mostly free of water and be released such that you get some water movement near the surface.

The control valve would allow you to choke off some air flow in case the lower section did not create the air pocket at the top of the barrel like you want for water separation. The side effect of this migh be that you get water sputtering out of the bubble vent tube at the top. Choke the valve down a bit and the pocket is created which helps separate the water from the diffused air.

Last edited by Quarter Acre; 07/23/19 03:52 PM.

Fish on!,
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Twar, if your lake is 15 feet deep I'm not sure that this would provide an additional advantage over a typical aeration system. Why not just circulate the entire water column? Disrupting the thermocline can be very advantageous for a pond of that depth.

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I used traditional aeration this year and last year and lost the trout I stocked. It just got too hot for them. I am hoping I can preserve the thermocline and aerate the water below it so it can sustain trout.

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Originally Posted By: Quarter Acre
Which of the versions will yours be most like, "A" or "B"?...



Yes going with A as I can try it for $100-150. B was going to be 4-500 for the pipe in pipe system.

I wonder how much water I would end up releasing above the thermocline as the bubble tube would effectively become an airlift. Would a short tube be better than a longer one? That's where trapping and separating the air would be key. How would I strip bubbles out of the water?

I am also planning on putting in some static mixers in the vertical tube to increase contact time with the air bubbles and mix the air and water.

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The more I think about this there are two things that concern me...

one, 15 foot of water is not much to work with. I have found the thermocline to be very fragile and can be disturbed very easily. I have my diffusers not deeper than 6 foot deep in my 10 foot deep pond and have never witnessed a thermocline while the aeration system was in operation. So, creating some extra lift above your system may pull deeper water up with it. If you have to choke it back to avoid this, it will throw the lower works out of balance requiring the air input to be reduced as well. (reducing the affectiveness all around)

two, the balance of the system will be critical to maximize the effects and utilize all the air you can pump to it. The size of the bubble vent tube is very important, too big and it will draw water up with it and too small and it will cause the air to burp out of the water outlets at the bottom. Now, throw an air control valve in there and you have to adjust the air input to the diffusers to balance the output.

I don't think these concerns are killers, but be prepared to do plenty of testing and retrofitting (and maybe abandoning the bubbling of the upper waters all together). Option "B" is much more forgiving in that you could just balance the size of the inner tube with your air input to move water and then start drilling small holes in the outer tube at the top to allow some of that water to escape into the upper column. I think the advantages of this are minimal and it reduces the affects below the thermocline.

Originally Posted By: Twar
I wonder how much water I would end up releasing above the thermocline as the bubble tube would effectively become an airlift. Would a short tube be better than a longer one? That's where trapping and separating the air would be key. How would I strip bubbles out of the water?water.


Once again...a balancing act. The closer to the surface that the bubble vent tube terminates, the less movement of water is realized hence the less of an effect on DO. The lower in the water column that it terminates, the more water movement AND the higher the possibility of disturbing the thermocline.

The stripping of bubbles happens in the top of the barrel not in the bubble vent tube.

Originally Posted By: Twar
I am also planning on putting in some static mixers in the vertical tube to increase contact time with the air bubbles and mix the air and water.


This is a very good idea and, again, a lesson in air and water flow balance. The more static mixers that are installed the slower the water and air moves and the larger that part of the system needs to be to allow it all to move through without the air backing up and burping out of the bottom of the diffuser intake funnel.

I have a general idea of fluid dynamics theory, but there is no way that I could engineer/design this system on paper with the hopes of it working out of the gate without spending many, many hours of calculations (even then, it would likely need modifications once installed). With that said, I would feel much more comfortable building option "B" because of it's minimal number of components and restrictions. If you have actual drawings with dimensions, that's a different story, but building it from the simple diagram leaves alot to figure out in the field. Be prepared to install, test, remove, modify, re-install, test, and so on. Don't let me sound like a "nay sayer"...it would be a very cool project, but a complicated one.


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I wonder if you could make it work with those ultra-fine diffuser stones used to directly oxygenate big fish transportation tanks. The super tiny bubbles would have greater gas exchange at a lower air volume. Additionally they would move the water MUCH slower, which is one main reason they are not used in ordinary pond diffuser systems.

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Originally Posted By: Scott E
I wonder if you could make it work with those ultra-fine diffuser stones used to directly oxygenate big fish transportation tanks. The super tiny bubbles would have greater gas exchange at a lower air volume. Additionally they would move the water MUCH slower, which is one main reason they are not used in ordinary pond diffuser systems.



I have heard those clog easily. I plan to use a vertex diffuser as I have one. I will be running around 1cfm through it.

This will be a hack job for sure and I wont know if it worked until this time next year. Can't hurt to try.

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Well be sure to keep us updated on how it goes.

Nearly 20 years ago I acquired a deep 8 acre pond that had a lot of organic muck on the bottom and would experience regular fish kills when the heat got high. Installing diffusers got rid of 2' of muck in a single season and ended all the fish kills. Ever since then I've just equated destratification with oxygenating the deep water. So now I'm fascinated by the idea of oxygenating the deep water while maintaining the thermocline.

After you get it up and running, I'd love to see some temperature and DO readings from the deep water.

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It's built and in the pond! I decided to run the outlet to the surface for simplicity. It has created an air lift fountain. It kind of sputters and I would guess it puts out less than 1 gpm. Outlet pipe is 3/4".

I have it sitting in 14' of water and the bottom is around 2' off the bottom. Total unit is around 7' tall.

It took 130# to anchor it down.

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Do you have any water temperature and dissolved oxygen measurements pre and post aerator?


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Very cool and interesting project! I am a trout guy too. Luckily I don't have to battle temperature TOO much. I am still extremely interested in your results. Don't stop posting now that it is in - like so many people do. Share some data, more pics and videos! We need more trout guys on here!

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I don't have a DO or temp meter. I don't think it would tell much this year since I had full depth aeration until a few days ago. The real test will be next year.

My basis for doing it was the loss of rainbow trout 2 years in a row. Unfortunately trout seen to sink when they die and I didn't realize what happened until this year.

My pond is a rounded square shape with one corner being the deepest at 15'. Most of the pond drops off to 6-8' quickly and stays there. I want to add a regular bottom diffuser in 6-8' of water kitty corner to this one to try and keep the other side from stagnating.

If I can create a small cold area with oxygen for 4-5 trout I will consider this successful.

I will say if I was to do it again I would do it differently. I would get a 6" plastic concrete footing bell from Lowe's or hd and attach it to 6" pvc going vertical. Level to slightly below the surface I would put in a tee with a leg to the side and add some extra up pipe to keep the water from going out over the top. From the tee I would go over another 2' and do another tee again with the two ends pointing towards the sky and bottom. Short up pipe again to let bubbles out and keep water in. Then 6" pipe down towards bottom to release water, with a tee at the bottom to send the water horizontally. A float would keep the surface cross tube half out of the water. It would be an air lift up then across and into the down pipe. Probably $250 -$300 for materials for the piping, float, and anchoring system.

It would be much simpler than the behemoth I created.

For my creation I plan on putting a cap on the pvc with a few holes in it to reduce the water being pumped up.

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I put a cap on the bubble tube with a 1/4" hole in it and I reduced the water output. At the same time a ended up getting some more height out of the fountain created.

It's shooting up 8-10' in the air now. I like it but want to reduce it down more.

I almost went with a geyser pump style for the inflow inside the barrel. That could have been interesting had I went with it. To do that, inside the barrel I would have put 2 90* bends on the up pipe so the bottom faced up. That would cause it to build a massive bubble before releasing am at once instead of little by little.

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Any updates on this project?


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Sorry no updates. It's off for the winter


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