Pond Boss Forums AERATION Should I aerate? Last minute fix, hopefully.

So my new pond looses a bit of water all the time. It isn’t a big deal because I have water year round that I can add to the pond if needed. Normally I’ll bring the level up 2-4 times a winter on warmer days. This brings a lot of cold, but oxygen rich water into the pond. I went to do
This this year and found out I had a broken pipe that would not allow me to back water up to the pond.

Crap! Started punching holes daily with my ice auger. Calving was coming up, so I couldn’t be there every day. I had a 12 volt air pump, about the size for a bait container. Better than nothing. I charged a 12 deep cycle battery. Rigged a cooler as a container, and gave it a try. Drilled an 8 inch hole and dropped a couple of aquarium style stones just below the ice. In a day, this is what I had:


I had to keep moving the cooler back because the bubbles kept eating the ice away. I actually saw one of my trout in the hole. I usually keep a few trout as a pond health indicator. They die first.

This is what my set up looked like.


As the ice got worse, I moved the cooler to shore and got one longer hose.



We will see what happens in the spring. I didn’t have any winter kill last year, but I had hundreds of tons more plants this year. Working on a multi year plan to manage the plant growth. It has me worried about winter kill.