The Big Pond being hidden, does not get much wind action and has....HAD a low Oxygen, High CO2 and Ammonia problem that was creating a algae and duck weed problem. Like the pond was starting to look pretty scummy and not very appealing to step foot into. People kept suggesting paddle wheels, skimmers, and multi head bubblers.. Diffusers. All viable solutions and cost more than I wanted to spend on it, when there is a much simpler and more cost effective solution to removing Algae/Duck Weed and balancing the water chemistry out at the same time and it is effective in 95% of ponds less than 5 acres. I bought two 4500GPH Submersible Pumps at harbor freight for $130 per pump. LOL the same company that makes the high end expensive ornamental pond pumps I used to install when I had the landscape company ($320 per 4500gph pump back in 2000-2007) Make the Harbor Freight Pumps. They are literally identical in parts and quality. Where they went cheap was the pump outer housing and removable screen intake end. The plastic is about 2/3s thinner than the higher end pumps. Not a big deal as they sit underwater on some cinder blocks and should not be moving around and breaking the casing Not knocking the other methods they work, the skimmers are pretty limited though. A skimmer simply takes the surface algae off and does not correct the water chemistry part of the problem. Pond dye also helps but I just don't like my ponds and and lakes looking like chem toilet water. The kids also enjoy playing in the fountains the pumps shoot pretty high up if they are set up to make a geyser. Here is the video right after I dropped the pumps in and turned them on. You can see in this one how scummy the water was getting. https://youtu.be/KpIBLrTYtkI And what it looked like 24 hours after turning the pumps on. https://youtu.be/B7LzVNOznN8 The simplest and least expensive solutions when it comes to ponds are generally the best solutions.
Nice . Them pumps cleared the ponds right up . I'm with you ,, kinda surprised at the results you got in such a short period of time. And I sure hate seeing those ponds that have the chemicals dumped in them to clean'em up as well . I just never figured it was doing any good at all for any fish living in them ponds .
I would have thought the air stone bubblers would have been cheaper. I once saw a municipal pond where they spent $50k to rig up geysers taller than yours, but that did the same thing, a swimming pond that often sees 100+ people swimming in it.
Bubblers/Diffusers range from really cheap to really expensive. I could have got a 2 head system of decent quality for $360. Diffusers do a good job of oxygenating but they have one drawback I don't like, they mess up the thermal zones and in older silted ponds they basically are constantly sending crap from the bottom to the top keeping the natural layers in constant chaos. The Pumps sit in 2-3 feet of water and don't disturb the thermal layers. LOL My geyser will be higher, right now one is shooting water higher from a 1 /12" outlet on top of the pump from 4" below the surface, the other is shooting up from 2' feet below the surface. I am going to reduce that down to 3/4" and put actual geyser heads on the top of the pipe. They will shoot up 19-20 feet after I do that. So I could not figure out why it cleared the algae and duckweed off in 24 hours. If it was the increased Oxygen which made no sense because that would have take 7-8 days minimum on the Duckweed. I went over to the North Side Shallows and found the answer. The waves the pumps make pushed all of the algae and duckweed up on the shallows banks. Where it is drying out and rotting. What I can't argue with is the daily improvements in the water chemistry. Oxygen PPM is at 7.74 CO2 is dropping, Ammonia is dropping, Carbonate is increasing and the PH is slowly inching down to 7 from 8.86 My target PH is 6.85 still on the high side at 7.48 today. I have a lot of Iron in the clay in that section of the property that is NOT helping me the PH down.
I grew duckweed for my chickens and fish, I set up a small pond that the duck weed grew in and the wind would blow it over to the chicken's fence and they gobbled it right up. One day the wind was so strong the chickens finished off all the duckweed.
LOL that described the stock pond it is nothing but thick mat of duckweed right now. The hogs used to wade around skimming it and kept it cleaned out. But I got rid of the hogs and the cattle only wade out into it to cool off, drop a deuce, take a leak in it and go back to the shade LOL. Which only makes the Duckweed grow thicker.......... Very fertile water in the stock pond hehe.
By cleaning it regularly Most pond pumps come with two cone fittings to clamp 3/4" up to 1 1/2 in hose onto So you can use the intake in two ways. The Strainer Screen that comes on them is great for just submerging in ornamental ponds that are typically very clean and debris free. In actual ponds where things are not so clean and debris free is where the intake cone goes on and the factory screen gets removed. I bought two 30' lengths of 1 1/2 hose that I will cut down to a 4' length and 26' length the 4' will go on the top to make the conversion to PvC pipe and reduce it to 3/4" PvC. that will run along the bottom and then make 90 degree turn up for the fountain head to screw on to (Bad idea to glue the head to the pipe as a couple X per year will need to blow crud out of the head). The 26' length will rune out into the 4-5 feet deep water where there is a lot less vegetation and debris. I am making my own screens for the hose end intake. A 1/4 inch wire mesh box that the end of the hose will fit into and a second smaller mesh box at the end of the hose inside the bigger screen box with 1/8th inch mesh. It sits on blocks or rocks 1' above the bottom and has a duck decoy tied to it to mark it and make it easy to pull up when it needs cleaned... Or Will have and Be when I find the time to build the cages. Right now I have them just dropped in the water sucking and ejecting wide open through the 2" intake hole and 2" top eject holes that the cones screw on to. Not a lot in the water at this time that can plug up a 2" intake port. Even less to plug it up raised 8" off the bottom sitting on a cinder block. But like any mechanical system that circulates from one point to another whether its a oil filter or a pond pump filter it needs cleaned or changed out every so often.
