How To Aerate A Pond And Why Your Fish Need It

Keep Your Fish Happy And Healthy In Your Maryland, DC, Or Northern Virginia Pond

Can’t…breathe…need…oxygen!! Many of us have had this feeling when swimming in a pool’s deep end. It’s not comfortable for us and it’s probably less so for anything, like fish, that live in water. Even fish can drown if there isn’t enough oxygen for them to breathe in the water. For them to breathe, they need aeration, which is the process of adding oxygen to the water. Keep reading to learn how to aerate a pond.

Don’t stop ’til you get enough! If you want to add oxygen to water, all you need to do is keep the water moving or continuously disrupt it. This can be done with aerators, waterfalls, streams, or aquatic plants. The more disruption the water’s surface gets, the more oxygen it gets! Let’s go more in-depth on surface aeration.

Checklist of Aeration Benefits

Keeps fish and other wildlife safe and healthy
Circulates the water, preventing stagnation
Moves debris towards skimmers, making it easier to remove
Creates a hole in the ice during winter
Fun for fish!

Check out pond aerator types and pricing!

Surface Aeration

Drip, drip, splash! Any type of fountain, a stream, and waterfalls are all additions that can help aerate a pond.

Streams and waterfalls can give a more natural aesthetic and feel to your pond. Fountains are popular because they can add a more elegant look to your pond! All of these options come with the benefit of being able to hear the relaxing sounds of burbling, splashing water. Whichever you decide, all of these options are great for making your pond and pond-life safe and healthy. Now let’s dive into sub-surface aeration.

Aeration 20,000 Leagues Below The Surface

Would you only want the outside of your body to be healthy? Like a body, ponds are an ecosystem. All of the separate parts need to be taken care of so it’s healthy as a whole. By aerating the deeper parts of your pond, you’re ensuring the whole ecosystem is healthy, not just the top. This is especially important for during the summer.

Summer mostly comes with a splash, which is what your pond will need. Warm or hot water can’t hold as much dissolved oxygen. This puts your pond at risk. Your fish can become sick, algae can begin to grow uncontrollably, and your pond can start to look like a scene from a swamp monster movie. Add sub-surface aeration to help prevent this! It’ll also keep your maintenance costs lower.

Do you want to know about the actual aeration device? Keep reading!

The pond version of Old Faithful, but with bubbles. It’s a disc the size of a dinner plate attached to an air compressor which you drop to the bottom of your pond. When you turn it on, a beautiful column of bubbles will rise up towards the pond’s surface. There’s your aeration, plus some added benefits.

It cleans too?!?! This column of bubbles can reduce stagnant areas by circulating the water. The moving water can push debris towards the pond skimmer, making it easier to keep your pond clean. Both you and your fish will love a pond which uses an aerator to clean. Fish love aerators because they like to play with it! They’ll be shy at first, but after the first one darts through it, the rest will follow. This scene can be a little different when winter strikes, so read on to learn about winterizing ponds with aerators.

Winter Aeration

Aerators provide a much different, though still important, function in the winter. They keep a hole in the ice. What, so you can go ice fishing? Actually, when ponds freeze over, the ice traps fish gas in the water. You can imagine what it must be like. The hole the aerator makes allows these gases to escape and keep your fish and water cleaner and healthier. To do this, the aerator needs to be closer to the top of the pond, and for good reason!

When you’re cozy underneath a pile of blankets, do you like feeling a cold breeze? Neither do fish. When they hibernate, they go towards the bottom where the water is warmer. Leaving an aerator at the bottom of your pond is the same as letting a cold breeze blow down there. Aerators mix the warm deep water with the cool surface water, which can harm your fish. Now you should know almost everything there is about how to aerate a pond!

You can shut off the aerator and use a de-icer instead to create a hole (even if the waterfall is left on)

Aerate Your Pond!

Aerate a pond and you can have it lifelong. Sadly, it isn’t a cure-all. Ponds still need maintenance, even low-maintenance ponds like ours. You can lessen the maintenance, and thus the cost, by keeping your pond in tip-top shape with aquatic plants, pond bacteria, and other types of filters.

Learn how filters can also keep your pond healthy >>