Pond Boss Forums AERATION Systems questions Aerating an Irregularly Shaped BOW?

Hey everyone,

I need advice on aerating an irregularly shaped BOW.

Construction was recently completed my new 3+ acre pond in southern Iowa. The specs are a rough guess but here’s what I believe to be accurate:

Total area: 3 acres
Main pool: 1.5 acres
Timbered fingers: 1.5 acres
Deepest point in main pool: 31 foot
Average depth in timbered fingers: 10 foot

This BOW has two personalities, the main pool is similar to a “normal” triangular shaped 1.5 acre farm pond where all trees have been removed. The dam is approx. 300 feet long and the main pool extends for 450 feet. Then the main pool transitions into timbered fingers that split and wind their way for several hundred feet into a timbered area, split again, eventually ending into dry creek beds. These fingers make up roughly half of the surface acres. The timbered fingers have been cleared of trees below the estimated waterline.

Questions:
How do you aerate irregularly shaped BOW?

Should I aerate the main pool and let the timbered fingers stay natural and stratify?
(I know the organic material will build up in the timbered fingers, especially each fall when millions of leaves fall into these fingers.)

I don’t see how these timbered fingers could be successfully aerated without a dozen or more small bottom diffused systems which would prove unfeasible from a cost perspective.

Thanks for any guidance you all can provide.

I am NOT an aeration expert, but I would try at least one aerator in the timbered fingers.

Did these fingers have a gully with some gradient before being filled? If so, you might get a lot of bang for your buck on the aeration.

Put an aerator in a deep spot, some distance in from the main pool. As that aerator is working, the cold dense water farther up the gully slope will preferentially move into the aerator lift column.

If that finger has much better fishing three years from now, then you certainly have answered your question!

Best of luck. It sounds like a beautiful pond!

Rod