My wife and I have purchased some property that has a 2.5 acre pond on it.
I've been told by the previous owner that the pond is about 30 ft. deep at
its deepest point.

My question is this. Would it be possible to use a lawn sprinkler pump to
create a fountain aerator for this pond? Has anyone every done this? If
so, how did you construct it? How did it work?

Thanks in advance,

R. Tarin

A fountain would want a continuous flow pump. A lawn sprinkler would
not be designed for that and might be quite high energy consumption.
The size of your pond would call for a LOT of pump to aerate it. Is
there a reason that you want to aerate so large a pond? It is likely to
have pretty good natural circulation with wind and sun alone. A pump
would not need to be a fountain to cause aeration. Just pushing water
along the surface will aerate it.

The bottom of the pond (30') will not be turning over very much (cold
water sinks) unless you have a layer inversion (rapid cooling of shallow
end top pushes deep bottom up). You could change the deep end water if
you set up an overflow to draw from the bottom of the deep end. If you
have water entering regularly from one end and exiting from a pipe at
the other, that will get you some turnover of water too.

Let us know what you finally do.

Jim

Randell Tarin wrote:
My wife and I have purchased some property that has a 2.5 acre pond on it.
I've been told by the previous owner that the pond is about 30 ft. deep at
its deepest point.

My question is this. Would it be possible to use a lawn sprinkler pump to
create a fountain aerator for this pond? Has anyone every done this? If
so, how did you construct it? How did it work?

Thanks in advance,

R. Tarin

Thanks for your reply and sorry for the late response. I've actually been
down at the property. We're building a cabin there by the pond.

The pond was created by a dammed-up intermittently fed creek. We're in a
drought situation now so the pond (as well as other area bodies of water are
quite low. Mine appears to be turning a little stagnant.

I think we'll eventually go with a diffuser type aerator. I've found one
that runs on windmill power for about $1100.

The pond was stocked when we bought it, but with an unfortunate addition of
catfish. The keep the bottom stirred up so the water is quite muddy. I
prefer the bass and perch we've caught.

The previous owner did little to maintain the pond, so we're increasing our
efforts to provide erosion control and to introduce beneficial aquatic
plants and fish species.

We have a terrible case of Duckweed, but hope to introduce some Tilapia to
the mix. They're supposed to be good at keeping out unwanted aquatic flora.

You're probably right about the energy consumption of the sprinkler pump.
I had one and thought I'd ask if anyone had ever tried it.

Randy

On 11/1/05 9:32 PM, in article ,
"Phyllis and Jim Hurley" wrote:

A fountain would want a continuous flow pump. A lawn sprinkler would
not be designed for that and might be quite high energy consumption.
The size of your pond would call for a LOT of pump to aerate it. Is
there a reason that you want to aerate so large a pond? It is likely to
have pretty good natural circulation with wind and sun alone. A pump
would not need to be a fountain to cause aeration. Just pushing water
along the surface will aerate it.

The bottom of the pond (30') will not be turning over very much (cold
water sinks) unless you have a layer inversion (rapid cooling of shallow
end top pushes deep bottom up). You could change the deep end water if
you set up an overflow to draw from the bottom of the deep end. If you
have water entering regularly from one end and exiting from a pipe at
the other, that will get you some turnover of water too.

Let us know what you finally do.

Jim

Randell Tarin wrote:
My wife and I have purchased some property that has a 2.5 acre pond on it.
I've been told by the previous owner that the pond is about 30 ft. deep at
its deepest point.

My question is this. Would it be possible to use a lawn sprinkler pump to
create a fountain aerator for this pond? Has anyone every done this? If
so, how did you construct it? How did it work?

Thanks in advance,

R. Tarin