Sink my air line!

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I bought a 120 air pump to insure enough surface agitation to keep an opening for gas exchange. is this wrong ?
I wasn't able to have my pond breathers running for last winter, so I tried aggressive aeration instead.
What wound up happening is that the aeration and resulting evaporation removed so much heat from my 5' deep pond that the ice cover was more than 3 feet thick, instead of the usual 2 feet.
I live on the extreme of what's practical for winter pond keeping, so in a milder climate it's probably fine, but just something to keep in mind when setting up a pond for winter.
 
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@GBBUDD - lots of people use an aerator to keep an opening in the pond surface when it freezes. You want to move it closer to the surface for it to work, though, and we keep a de-icer over the opening in case the hole freezes over anyway. When it gets bitterly cold, the aerator on it's own is sometimes not enough. We keep our pond running, but have a second set up ready to go in case something fails.

@MitchM 's situation is a whole other ball game!
 
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That's why I went with the 120 when it is on it lifts the water column about 3 inches higher then the water level and its no small amount the diffuser is a rhino 18" round bladder . the wife wants me to set it on an oscillating timer because when it starts up it's like a nuclear bomb going off the mushroom cloud it does look really cool . I should also add I am making a large closet type room for the pump and the air pump so that there own heat will be retained and that will be tranfered to the air pump and to the pond it won't be a lot but it should be a couple degrees of warmth
 
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Timers are not advisable with an aerator.
Maybe put a valve inline so you can reduce the airflow to the aerator.
 
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she was just asking, I had no intention of doing so I have to admit with the crystal clear waters and the mushroom cloud it's cool to see.
 
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she was just asking, I had no intention of doing so I have to admit with the crystal clear waters and the mushroom cloud it's cool to see.
You should put up a video of this. I would like to see that.
 
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I'm sitting here watching my fish use the new aerator as a playground - they love it, after a few days of being totally freaked out by it. We ended up getting the weighted line - simple and easy. My kind of solution. Bought enough so we can move the aerator around to different spots if we want. So much better than our old small airstone version.
I wish I saw this thread earlier. I have extra weighted air line. I would have sent you some.
 

addy1

water gardener / gold fish and shubunkins
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You're gonna love the weighted line @addy1 - like you I was so tired of dealing with (or looking at) the floating lines. Now I can't even tell it's there!

I have used fishing weights, blocks, rocks, etc, finally just yanked the lines. I do have a lot of water flow, but off and on think of using air to "stir" the bottom for some debris cleaning.
 
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I just like the bubbles - haha! And the fish do, too. Initially they were terrified of the new aerator, but slowly the got used to it and now they swim in and out of the column of bubbles all day long. Sometimes they even just hover over it, like they're getting a fishy massage.
 

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