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Ponds - Agriculture - Waste Water - Lakes - Effluent Bodies - Aquaculture - Reservoirs - Golf Courses - Animal Waste Lagoons - Bacterial Augmentation - Industrial Water Treatment
 
Aeration Systems is the action of imparting oxygen to oxygen deficient water thereby benefiting all the living organisms in the pond. All ponds require oxygen to oxidize chemical substances in the water (aerobic respiration) to breakdown dead organic matter and to keep living organisms alive. When a pond's natural ability to produce oxygen is compromised, an anaerobic process begins (decomposition without oxygen) which results in the formation of methane, hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide gases. With adequate oxygen, nitrogen and phosphorus can be tied up in organic matter or oxidized as precipitates. Under anaerobic conditions nitrogen and phosphorus are disassociated and solubilized. Phosphorous, in particular, is then returned to the water column as food for single celled algae and other organisms suited to anaerobic or anoxic environments. An Aeration System supplements the natural sources of oxygen in the pond and serves to give a reliable baseline of dissolved oxygen to all pond organisms. Since a good aeration system will do many things for a pond, what criteria should be satisfied when evaluating an Aeration System ?
 
- It should not be too capital intensive to purchase.
- It must generate good dissolved oxygen transfer through the entire water column right to the sludge water interface at the very bottom.
- It should be relatively quiet. Most users will put up with a bit of splashing from a fountain or the sound of a waterfall, but not many users care to withstand with the racket of industrial pumping as a backdrop.
- It must be relatively unobtrusive. In a perfectly natural looking pond or waste water lagoon a large mechanical device in the middle of the retention area is not aesthetically pleasing. The same applies to situations where there are large buildings or encumbrances installed on the pond edge that can't be readily camouflaged.
- It must be relatively maintenance free. The Aeration Systems owner's time, as well as the time of their staff, is extremely valuable and there is more than enough to do in the season as it is. It's not appropriate to have technologies that require continuous maintenance. This is particularly so if it is a goal to keep the aquatic environment alive in the winter when, in some cases, the system may not be looked at for a week at a time or more.
- It must have good mixing capabilities. It serves no great purpose to put a massive amount of oxygen in only one part of the pond. The most effective way of mixing is to emulate the motion of a slowly rolling river in order to carry oxygenated water right to where water and bottom sludge contact each other. Sludge is the source of many of the symptoms that we see in surface water bodies.
- It must have a good service life. Ideally, a person should be installing systems that are going to outlive their own career.
- It must be relatively inexpensive to operate. There is a direct relationship between the amount of equipment horsepower required to perform a job and the operational costs. If electrical costs to run a system are high, attempts to reduce these costs by running the system on a part-time basis are usually attempted. This reduces results dramatically so don't lock into any Aeration System where operating costs could prohibit the continuous operation of the system.
- It must be able to serve as an effective water mixing method when the bacterial augmentation program is initiated. Natural water and soil bacteria require complete distribution in water to effectively compete with algae, or other plants, for available nutrients.
- It should have a measurable effect on reducing the rate of evaporation occurring in the pond. This can be accomplished by a system that turns the water over from the bottom depths and lifts it to the top thereby reducing temperature differences. Equalizing temperature throughout the water body lowers surface water temperature, which reduces evaporation (providing the pond is sufficiently deep to start with).
- It should be able to be used as a method of distributing either activated oxygen, or ozone, where advisable to do so.
- It should have the capability to transfer heat from the water effectively enough that ice cover is not in effect on the pond for an additional four to six weeks out of the year.
Can any one Aeration System possibly do all of the above? While many cannot, a well-designed system can accomplish most, or all, of the above objectives. Your goal should be to use the above criteria as a working checklist against conditions in your water bodies to find a system that can address the greatest number of your water quality concerns, over the long run, at a reasonable cost.
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