Pond Aeration For Long And Narrow Ponds

Every once in awhile I’ll get a pond owner who asks about aerating an oddly shaped pond.  Most commonly, what this means is the pond may be quite a bit longer than it is wide.  The shape really isn’t uniform but more oblong or extended.  The pond might be a 1/4 acre to an acre in size and this presents a bit of a challenge for fitting a typical aerator kit.

Most of these systems are, at least initially, laid out with a uniform pond in mind.  It might be round, square, or a something close to that, and if that’s the case it’s no big deal.  Just fit the suggested unit to the surface area and the depth that you’re working with.

You might recall that depth is a critical factor here because the deeper you can get a diffuser the more surface area it will positively affect.

But on ponds that either have a really oblong shape, or those that are very shallow, there’s a better way to cover them, and that’s with an additional diffuser, rather than just using a single one.

When we’re talking about a pond in this size range (1/4 acre to 1 acre in size) we always start by looking at the 1/4 HP packages.  This is assuming of course that there’s a bit of depth to work with and the ponds not ultras shallow, like 3 to 6 feet on average.  But if there’s a bit of depth to work with, a 1/4 HP compressor, coupled with a single diffuser, will cover a lot of pond area very well.  As the depth increases to 10′ or beyond, you can easily cover a 1 acre pond.

However we’ve run into enough instances, and they seem to be getting more common, where folks are wanting to add aeration to long and narrow ponds, or maybe it’s a pond under an acre but it’s shallow.  

In these particular instances, an additional diffuser will do a lot of good.  

In order to make this work you only need three things.  We add a valved splitter to the compressor, attach some additional weighted airline, and a second diffuser which goes in the pond.  The air output is then spread more evenly throughout the pond, providing better circulation and oxygenation in every part of it.

We also like to use this set up in ponds that may have ice build up in the winter months.  It’s very nice to put one diffuser in a deeper depth, and one that’s a bit more shallow.  In the summer months you run air out of both.  In the winter, you simply turn the valve off on the deep diffuser and run all the air through the shallow one.  This helps keep ice open and allows a good air exchange even when it’s cold outside.

On our website, you’ll now find that we’ve created this add-on package for those that may need better aerating coverage in their ponds.  This can be purchased along with either the Easy Pro or Sentinel 1/4 HP kits, or added later on if you should need it.

In the end, it just made sense for us to put this together because it fills a bit of a void between the single and 3 diffuser options, and most importantly, it helps to provide robust and healthy air to some ponds that just weren’t going to be adequately covered with a standard 1/4 HP system.