A few pond owners have contacted me recently with some very good questions on how to aerate a larger pond that’s pretty shallow. Should they do it in the winter and if so, how?
To be more specific, we’re talking about ponds in the 1/8 to 1/2 an acre in surface area and something in the range of 3 to 6 feet deep. In ponds like this, a traditional aeration package probably would help but it’s not really well suited to the depth of the pond. For a pond with some depth to it, I usually suggest moving a single diffuser from the deepest part of the pond in the summer, to a more shallow location in the winter months. This article on winter pond aeration explains it in more detail.
But in shallow waters during most of the year, you normally will need more diffusers to cover the same size of pond, as you would a single diffuser in a pond that’s 10 to 15 feet deep or greater. In other words, the deeper the pond, the less diffusers you’ll need. So shallow pond aeration kits were developed to work specifically in large ponds with shallow conditions. They use a single compressor coupled to multiple diffusers spread throughout the pond. The compressors are usually a bit less powerful and this needs to be kept in mind when using them in colder weather.