Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Panic - DO sag

I just treated my duck weed with Sonar, and think I having a O2 problem. It a third of an acre pond. We've got an air pump and one defusser head going, but that may not be enough. We're on day 8 after the treatment and the duck weed is turning a pail brown. I have some jumbo cats slowly swimming on the surface, and pulled a 20#er out dead this morning. I think I need to get another air pump going ASAP. Does any one know where I could pick up a diaphram pump up at one of my local stores (TSC, Lowes, etc.)? I'm not sure I want to wait for mail order. What about putting a sprinkler onto the pond. Do you think that would help?
I will figure something out, buy any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks

Mike

What about a outboard motor to churn up the water. Could also hook up a trolling motor to do the same. Be careful with putting drinking water in the pond (chlorine). A sprinkler hooked to a water pump would help. Anything that moves the water will help.

Do you have pressurized water nearby? You could shoot it in through the classic sweeper nozzle.

No chlorine, I'm on a well. I drove all over town and no luck on a small continous duty type compressor. But I think I bought myself some time. First good news - it clouded over and a strong south wind came up. That pushed all of the dying duckweed to one end. I bought hardware to split my air line and add a second defuser to my pump. This should cut some of the back pressure and put more air volume into the water. With that thought, I pulled in the air line and found that the one diffuser had split (this is the EPDM type). So for now, I replaced the diffuser with my spare and set the line back out. The air stream looks much better.

I don't think I'm out of the woods bacause the weed is in the dieing phase and hasn't started decomposition - the point where bacteria uses O2.

Bruce, yes. If it gets hot and calm again, I may hook up the sweeper nozzle. This will cool the pond and add aerated water to the surface anyway. I'm going to get on the phone / net tomorrow morning and buy a second pump. Doesn't hurt to have a second / spare...

Thanks guys.

I hate to tell you this but diffusers are lousy aerators in an emergency. That's not their purpose. You need some suface agitation pronto. Sweeper nozzle, trash pump shooting water over the surface whatever. Here's a good publication on various types of pond aeration. Granted it's related to commerical aquaculture but it has some good information.

http://aquanic.org/publicat/usda_rac/efs/srac/371fs.pdf

A word to the wise. Whenever you are doing a significant weed treatment it is a good idea to have a surface aerator handy or in use in case D.O's plumet.

Good reference Cecil. I think the thing about diffusers is that thay don't circulate aerated water that well. There may be a great source of aerated water around the diffuser, but in the slack water areas, not so good.

I may have to look into a spray system. The pond I have has one and worked by taking sand point wells and pumping groundwater into a spray thus filling the pond. When the pond was full it would spill and flow down stream. They raised trout here all year round. That system hasn't been activated for ten years or more (before my time). It's pricy to run a couple of two horse pump motors around the clock. I've not tried to activitate the system and suspect it would cost a bundle to get running again.

I've considered surface mounted pumps and spraying the pond. Plugging seems to be a major problem with this approach. Any comments for you sprinkler folks?

I found this in the "product" section. Someone was asking about sonar.

"I would be very careful at eliminating a pond full of weeds (80%-90% coverage) in the warm water of summer. A massive weed kill will cause a strong reduction of dissolved oxygen which may result in a fish kill. Several factors such as temperature, amount of sunshine, amount of phytoplankton, presence of lake dyes and average pond depth will come into play here."

It's a little late now. But something to think about in the future.