Aerators and farm pond...how much maintenance?

[9973720wb19]

I'm considering getting one or two aerators for our pond. what annual maintenance is involved with those? do they need to come out in the winter? we live in Maryland and most years, our pond freezes over. thanks guys!

 

[Thomas]

Neighbor has 3 aerator in his pond and removes before 32F,aerators place back in pond when water 40F 8" down...aerators help lot to keep the algae down.

 

[KennyG]

I have a couple of ponds with air pumps and aerators. I just unplug the air pump in the winter and leave the aerator and tubing in the pond. In the spring I plug it back in and it works. Both have been in service for about 3 years this way. Both ponds would get completely covered with algae in warm weather before the aeration. Now they only get a minimal amount at the shallow edges.

 

[wjmst]

100 ft x 100 ft pond, about 8 feet deep in the middle. One aerator runs 24x7x365 in western pa. No problems. I just clean the air filter on the pump a few times a year.

 

[KennyG]

Just another thought. When people talk about aerators they sometimes mean the spray fountains which pump water into the air. True air aerators that pump air into a submerged distributor are much more efficient and trouble free.

 

[9973720wb19]

this is excellent information guys. really appreciate it. yes we have algae issues in the summer. we don't want an aerator that shoots up in the air/fountain type, just something like a surface bubbler - i assume like the one KennyG is talking about.

 

[GeneV]

I'm interested in this as well, same story, want submersed aeration, not a fountain.

 

[alexpops]

Which air pumps are worth looking at?

 

[wjmst]

AirMax Series is what I have and works great.

Airmax PondSeries, Aerate up to 6 Acres

Browse The Pond Guy's selection of pond aeration supplies, including the popular Airmax pond aeration system that aerate ponds up to 6 acres and 50ft deep.

www.thepondguy.com

 

[John_Mc]

You don't really want a surface bubbler. For best results, you want the aerator sitting at the bottom of the pond, so you aerate the whole water column. Some years I leave mine running year round (I'm in the Champlain Valley of Vermont). That keeps the surface of the pond from completely freezing over, preventing buildup of gasses which can be hard on the fish and amphibians livign in the pond. Some winters, I shut it off and let things freeze over completely, so we can skate on the pond.

We use a Koenders electric aerator model HD250 with one of their diffusers sitting in a bucket at the bottom of our pond (just under 1/4 acre). Our pond is long and narrow. One of these days, I'll get around to putting a second aeration diffuser in and spread them out a bit, rather than having just one in the middle. The pump I have will handle more than one.

The Koenders pump has worked well for us. The first Koenders we put in lasted about 15 years. When a part eventually broke, I could have repaired it, but decided to just go with a new one.

We helped our neighbors install a wind-driven Koenders aeration pump probably 10 or 15 years ago. It's still going strong. I would have liked to run one of those in our pond, but it's just too sheltered from the wind to work well.