How Much Aeration?

Any amount aeration improves water quality.   Maintaining dissolved oxygen concentration above a critical threshold throughout a pond has not been shown to be economically justifiable using currently available aeration technology.  Instead,  fish farming professionals only aerate to provide a refuge of "fish safe" aerated water areas near the aerator to prevent fishkills, control algae, strip toxic gases and destratify.

SUSTAINABLE SOLAR POWERED AERATORS MAKE A "FISH SAFE"  ZONE ANYWHERE YOU PUT THEM,  24/7.   

UNSUSTAINABLE GRID AERATORS & "NO WIND" MILLS  CREATE "FISH KILL"  ZONES ANYWHERE YOU PUT THEM IN  MINUTES. 

EPDM MAINTENANCE FREE COARSE BUBBLE DIFFUSER

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THREE EKBS10

FIVE EKBS10

Solar Powered Aeration at 0.5-1.0 cfm or 30 lpm, per million gallons.  Also see our new G2V-STAR & ECO-AERATOR shorline or deep warter floating mounts to keep your ponds, dugouts, and retention basins aerated based on studies by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Aeration is necessary to maintain oxygen in pond water to keep ponds healthy and prevent hypoxia.  In all non-aerated/non-mixed ponds, stagnant fish cages,  and algae blocked ponds,  only the first few inches of the pond hold dissolved oxygen and that oxygen content decreases rapidly at night.  This is because algae and cyanobacteria which produce excess oxygen and sequester carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere during the day, switch metabolism at night, and quickly use up pond water oxygen. This natural process depletes almost all of the water oxygen supply.  In turn the biological balance is destroyed and all pond life could die within hours. Oxygen depletion occurs even more rapidly when ponds are covered in ice or when weather suddenly mixes the non-aerated and aerated water.

Don't be fooled by high power aeration like  fountains or splashers that use +$450/mo. in electricity & maintenance to drive 0.5-2 horsepower motors.  Don't be mislead by "deep water," bottom mounted diffusers,  like windmills and  daylight only timer controlled solar systems. Those  systems can only run for a few hours each day (max. 20 hrs if you don't run on weekends), and their "deep water" designs periodically disturb bottom muck.  SUSPENDING BOTTOM MUCK creates MORE STRESS on fish and water quality than no aeration at all.  DO NOT use bottom mounted diffusers in winter in order to prevent super-cooling the warm bottom water and shocking fish. Use our floating draft tube aerators instead. 

Yes, we do offer bottom mounted diffuser systems with no power bills as well.   However, our deep water  hybrid systems run 24/7 with up to 3 cloudy days in a row.

BOTTOM MOUNTING A DIFFUSER BURNS LOTS OF ENERGY!

Our standardized floating diffuser solar systems perform better than our deep water hybrid systems.  One reason is almost all of the oxygen dissolved into the water from an air bubble occurs when the bubble is being formed. Only a negligible amount of oxygen transfer occurs during the bubbles transit to the surface. However, a large amount of the bubble energy can be utilized after formation, simply by making the bubble do work. Placing the bubble inside a vertical tube causes it to move water from the lower end of the tube and pump it to the surface. In this manner it takes the same amount of energy to aerate and mix water at any pond depth.  In contrast, bottom mounted diffusers almost double consumed power for every few feet of pond water depth.

If you are NOT aerating your pond or lake now then it is stratified.  Typically this means the top few inches of water are saturated with oxygen while directly below are many layers of anoxic toxic water.  A violent storm can quickly mix these layers causing a serious fish kill.

When you aerate and destratify the pond water  you can turn the whole pond into a dissolved oxygen storage zone and eliminate this dangerous scenario.

EKBS10

EKBS-10  SOLAR AERATOR
Other independent pond studies at a stagnant  Reed Swamp shows a   scenario of  30-250 mg/m2/hr of oxygen demand.  The EKBS-10 at 0.1 cfm airflow can easily supply ten times 250 mg/m2/hr of dissolved oxygen or fewer than four  EKBS-10 units per surface acre.

We offer four solar aerator models.  Our 20, 45, and 60 watt units utilize top floating draft tubes to aerate with no maximum pond depth.  Our 240 watt units utilize bottom mounted diffusers with extended risers for ponds up to a maximum depth of 20 ft. 


All our solar aerator units utilize low profile solar arrays. All our systems require an unobstructed southern exposure to the sun.  Our PV panel shoreline mounts require flat, well drained areas. 

We also offer wet/dry pre-mounted floating deck solutions with fixed sliding leg supports for areas prone to intermitent flooding or permanent deep water installs.   Site footprints increase in size from 2x2 to 10x10 ft squares for our largest units.

All units install in minutes with simple hand tools!