Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction Aerating a large pond

MrsGumby,

Hello! I'm down here in Georgia and have just this year jumped into the ring of fighting duckweed and watermeal in a fifty-year-old two-acre pond that has also suffered from some fish kills in the last two or three years. The very first thing we did was install an aeration system to TRY and help reduce the nutrients in the pond by boosting dissolved oxygen which is then supposed to help fuel the natural bacteria that helps to consume the excess nutrients in the water that are fueling the growth of watermeal and duckweed. The other thing we are leaning on the aeration to do is heighten the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water to help to eliminate fish kills. The duckweed was knocked out earlier in the year, but the watermeal has persisted. We are trying to avoid fluridone treatment for as long as we can resist it to see how mechanical/aeration techniques may stymie the watermeal's proliferation. Ultimately, we will probably end up doing a fluridone treatment towards September/October when we usually end up with multiple dry weeks in a row. Fluridone treatments are incredibly costly and any water fluctuation that adds water (heavy rain) can throw the percentage of systemic in the pond out of whack and waste the efforts if it is not boosted accordingly.

So, what I CAN say is that the aeration is going on about three weeks after installation. We have absolutely noticed a marked difference in fish activity at the top of the water! Also, the water clarity has increased rather drastically. I don't know how permanent this is or isn't. We run the aeration from 12am to 8am on a timer. We do this because it gets so hot here (we've already hit the low 100F this summer a couple of times) that we don't want the pump running in that heat and blowing hot air into the pond. I think where you're at that you may be able to get away with running it 24/7. The reason I bring this up is because if I get out to the pond before the aeration cuts off, the clarity is roughly around 20-24", but if I'm there in the evening the clarity is closer to 40" depth. Anyway, aeration is something that will be beneficial to your pond no matter what you decide to do to try and deal with the watermeal.