Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Building a dam siphon pipe value with aeration???

Here's my question.

If a pond is fully aerated - meaning the water is fully mixed - how valuable is a siphon pipe at that point?? If the water is fully mixed is the pond not discharging the same quality of water from an overflow as it would be from a bottom siphon pipe? Let's say the bottom water is still lower quality by some amount. Is the bottom water bad enough for a siphon to still be worth it? I am sure it ALL DEPENDs, but let's hear some opinions or see some data!!

It all depends on how easy it is to install the drain. If the dam is existing, then a siphon is easier to retrofit than a standpipe type drain.

Remember, a siphon doesn't "have to" suck water from the bottom of the pond.

Isn't that one of the biggest benefits of the siphons though? Removing bottom water??

Yes it is, but in your example that doesn't apply.

Local lake had a knife valve installed probably back in the 40's. It let water out to control the lake level maybe 15' down. It was opened and closed by a big wheel up top. The DNR installed a spillway system when they re-did the road in the area over the creek that was formed by the water coming out of the lake in the late 1990's. Now the finger of the lake where the water exited is 6' shallower than what it was in the late 1990's.

Scott, that is my main question and I am thinking you answered it. Are you saying with the water fully mixed a siphon pipe will not remove anymore nutrients than a spillway??

I am trying to remove nutrients from my lake. If installing a siphon would speed up that process I would consider it. It would only really make an impact for about a month during the run off. My water stays fully mixed so during the run off I am sending mixed water over the spillway.

That is my thought but the only way to know for sure is to take water samples at the top and bottom of the water column and send them out to be analyzed for nutrients.

I would pull from the bottom if only to have a means for undissolved solids, aka muck, to be removed.

IMO based on using both systems , the force of a bottom siphon running will remove some silt/debris etc that an overflow even with aeration will not.