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Hi All
I have seen so many answers to this question,thought it might be nice to know if there is any evidence to support a lot of air,one site always says you can't have too much..but last year I had 440ltrs in the pond and filter and didn't see an't benefit with the koi looking more active or eating more than normal...even paid over £200 for this air pipe suppost to be the beens knees but thats in the garage now
I think there is a point where you could have to much air where it perhaps becomes a bit mad/uncomfortable for the fish as i am sure they don't want to be moved all over the show all day long and could do with a rest now and then i know i would
The main thing is having enough air to support the fish and lets not forget the filters also as the little bugs we have in the filters also need plenty of air. If you have a smallish pond with lots of fish then you will indeed need more air for both the fish and filters and someone with a lower stocks will need reduced air.Some people put loads of air into there ponds and not enough into the filters and i think they are both as important and we need to balance it out.
I run K1 in my system and have a 40ltr pump in each of the biological filters which there are three of and then one 40ltr pump on the bottom drain so this gives me 160lts of air going into my pond. I also run a Bakki Shower which has two 16,000ltr pumps going over it and as you can imagine this also generates a far amount of air so i think my fish get enough air in the pond and also the filter bacteria should also have enough air to help them do there stuff I also have a spare 45ltr pump which goes onto an air line that i use in the summer or if i have added a treatment to give them a little extra.
I've got 100l going into my 3,500g pond but almost all of that goes into my k1 chamber. I only have 1 small air stone in the pond to work like an aerated drain.
I judge the amount of air in a pond enough when it's moving the water enough as the amount that actually dissolves into the water from the bubbles is minimal.
Duncan
I have 17 Koi 12"-30"(at a guess) pond 6400gallon,In the Summer I have an old 120Airtech in the Nexus and that bubbles the k1 and Bio-chips a treat had a old 120 airtech on the bottom drain an old120 Airtech on that airline thing and an old 80airtech on a air diffuser,
At the moment as the tempreture is only 10.5 I have my 120 on the Nexus and the 80airtech on the bottom drain,hope thats enough infomation.
right while you have a fair old pond i think 440 litres of air is over kill and costing you more money than the pond can use
saturation of O2 is temperature dependant , the hotter the water the less it will saturate with O2 the colder it gets the higher it will saturate sowhat does this mean?
well at lets say 10 dg c water will saturate to around 11-12 mg/l / ppm while when its hot lest say 25 c the best you are going to get is a round 6-7mg/l/ppm there is a table for this which is in my book i'll look it out tonight and post it
in laymans terms what this means is on a hot day at say water temp 25c the max you are going to reach is 6mg/l O2 and you wont surpass this even if you had a thousady air pumps and a thousand spin drifters attached because the temperature wont let you
in cold winter temps you pond will saturate to 11mg/l possible with out and air pump at all just by gas exchange at the waters suface curtainly one pump is all thats required
these are scientific fact , so wher does that leave us ?
in summer unless you have a lot of fish and the combined biological Oxygen demand ( OD) for fish and filter is high you will probably get away with one or possible two modest airpumps lets say 160 litres max if your OD is high you still wont saturate any higher than 6mg/l but at least you can replace it as fast as you use it but i still doubt you would need any more than two air pumps
lets put it this way i have a high stocking level and a high bio demand but i only use two hi blow 40 litre pumps and i have a psare that drives my eazy for cleaning
Thanks Duncan
Makes sence,it's very hard to get it right when you have some "experts" saying you can't have enough air,then there was an artical from Mikey that made me think perhaps I've been given the wrong advice,so I'll keep the air down and as Gazza aways says"keep an eye on them",keep up the good work,thanks for this part of your site,I feel you can ask questions without getting a lot of crap.
I have 60 lpm going into K1
60 lpm going into the deep end of the pond
50 lpm going into the bottom of my Trickle tower with 5000 lpm of flow going over it
All into a 10,000 litre / 2000 gallon pond wth a high stock level
Water always at suturation for the temp. I have overkill but that allows for failure of any of the systems without any problems. Same with the filters, I have 2 sets, each on its own should cope, but having both allows for failure
So we have the "Diffusers" of varying types - ie:- attached to Bottom drains, on free standing bases etc.
Then there is the traditional "Airstone" - there appear in discs, Balls, and various other shapes.
Also there is the pipes type which lay on the pond floor etc
Then the bar types such as Microbubbler / reoxair etc
Finally the good old fashioned waterfall, and i i'd add into this Showers, TT's etc.
Is there any data out there which shows the best method of adding air to the pond and the bubble type which is most effective at getting oxygen into the water?
Then as a final note we have oxygen generators which seem to work in the mg/l and hour tyype set up but i know nothing about these and the way they work and the efficiency which they add pure oxygen to the pond water.
My turn
First vortex is 130 ltrs K1 with 40 ltrs of air, second vortex is identical to the first.......... third vortex is large j mat cartridge with 80 ltrs of air, but this may all change very soon.
BD has 40 ltrs of air and I also put a large jap stone in pond in summer which also has 40 ltrs of air.
The airstone in pond is actually better than the BD as I think a lot of the holes on the membrane are blocked, so now the airstone is placed directly on top of membrane of BD and working as we speak..... it only gets switched off in really cold weather.I also have a spare 40 ltr pump as well
So filters, 160 ltrs of air, pond 80 ltrs of air......pond 4200 g
madmole wrote:the bubbles dont get the air into the water, they drag the water up from the bottom and circulate it. the air dissloves in at the surface.
Completely agree with this. It's the movement the air creates that's the real benefit IMHO rather than the diffusion of gas from the bubbles. Only really fine air bubbles will increase the air/water interface significantly.
Hi
I was advised to buy one of these as there supposed to be the best out there,it does deliver fine bubbles but if it lays on the bottom it tends to move any waste before it gets to the drain,I think the answer might be to suspend it off the bottom,I have the 2meter one in the garage.
Regards Geoff
I’m in the middle of a spin off thread to this which I started at work today but briefly you need some help here.
I mentioned or implied you can have to much air and that’s very true but only in so much as the unneeded air is redundant to saturation but that’s assuming the extra air is not doing or fulfilling an entirely different purpose to that of saturation EG making water move where you need it such as bottom drain sweeping , or agitating K1 in a fluidised system
The trouble with this is, this in itself is false because it assumes aeration cant do or perform two or more functions at once, in other words just because your air input is agitating your K1 does not mean its not saturating you water in fact air can do more than two jobs if you so desire in short what ever you have air doing dynamically for you within the water; it will still be saturating at the same time, be that fluidising pond sweeping flushing and a flow through system it will still be saturating water at the same time
However how well it does the latter (saturating) depends on how you’re applying the primary reason for aeration in that situation then the following applies
Its true oxygen water interface takes place commonly at the surface of the pond water but that does not mean it has to be bubbles bursting in fact the bubble bursting ends the process, there is no more to be extracted other than normal surface area air exchange. where as, as a bubble rises ( because a bubble generally does little else) the surface area of the bubble while its rising is where O2 is exchanging into the water is taking place. the longer that bubble is rising the longer its in contact with the water so the better the gas exchange
In other words the whole of the bubble surface area is the where O2 comes in contact with water and thus where saturation (gas exchange) take place several factors influence how well this takes place one is bubble size and the other is duration of bubble contact with water
So the smaller the bubble the better the exchange so the easier the saturation, next the longer the contact time of the bubble to water the better the exchange so the deeper the air is introduce the longer the bubble will be in contact so the better the transfer the shallower the air is input the less the interaction will be so this is the worse scenario for gas exchange
Look at marine guys they use wooden air stones this gives a massive amount of bubbles and with that comes a massive amount of surface area
Just something to think about those fine long air stones are great if that’s what you need in your system no other air stone will do it better
