Best Air Pump Setup?
My friend is moving up to a 2200 gallon pond, deepest part is approximately 4 feet, surface area approximately 110 sq ft. We’ll have a 90 gallon homemade biological filter feeding the waterfall, looking at the homemade venturi setups to put on the output of the skimmer pump to help with aeration. Right now, we’re not planning any fountains. However, we think at a minimum we’ll want an air pump to run all winter, to keep the pond from icing over while the other pumps aren’t running, so if it is relatively energy efficient we’d probably run it all summer too.
Anyone have any recommendations on the best aeration setup for a pond that size? I did a search in “air pump” in this forum, and didn’t see any posts that addressed this.
My questions:
1. Best energy efficiency per unit of air moved. This is really important to us. I extensively researched pumps and bought a Laguna Max-Flo 2400 because the specs show it can pump well over 2000 gph at 100 watts. Not even the inline pumps were that efficient. I will measure actual electrical and water pumping performance at some point. We’ll have a head of about 8 feet so it will probably actually pump something like 1400 GPH. I’m doing similar research on air pumps via the web, but if someone has already done that work….
2. What volume of air moved. The outdoor pumps I’ve looked at move from 4 - 100 liters per minute. What is a good minimum. I assume more is better and there is not really any danger of putting too much air in the water?
3. Related to 2 above, what pressure should I be looking for? The outdoor pumps I’ve seen are listed at PSIs ranging from 2.9 to 9. I’m guessing we’d put the air diffuser(s) in the 4 foot section, and the water pressure at 4 foot of depth is about 1.8 PSI above atmospheric. Seems to me the pump that does 2.9 PSI would be hard pressed to get much air moved at a four foot depth — and none at all at a 7 foot depth (3.03 PSI of water pressure) — but that pump is touted as being great for large ponds? So maybe I’m not looking at this correctly.
4. Is it important to have multiple diffusers? Any rule of thumb about how much air to how much diffuser surface?
5. Whatever else I’m not smart enough to ask about.
Thanks in advance for any advice.
Frank
Category: Worldwide Koi Club
