Why Koi Pond Use Air Pump

AIR PUMP -- Aeration, in one word, sums up the reason why your Koi  pond needs an air pump. Pond aeration is as essential to ponds as air, particularly oxygen, is essential for us to live. In lakes and ponds, not only fish are dependent on dissolved oxygen (DO) supply in the water. Many other organisms in the water also depend on it to function well and survive. A shortage of oxygen opens a Pandora’s Box of problems to your pond’s water quality and clarity, which can rapidly escalate to fish deaths sooner than you expect. So unless you are willing to take the risk of suffering the consequences from poor pond aeration, a pond air pump is a must.



Koi Ponds get naturally aerated, but not adequately. Unlike mountain streams or raging rivers that have higher DO levels, the comparatively still waters in ponds and lakes don’t get additional aeration benefit from energised water movement. In addition, air contains only about 20% oxygen. So even if oxygen diffused from the atmosphere dissolves passively into the water, the amount is far too low to be sufficient.

To make matters even worse, several factors further decrease the level of DO in the water. Some of them are:

• Rising temperature – the demand for oxygen rises as temperature goes up due to increased metabolic rates of fish and other aquatic life.

• Koi Fish population and size – the more Koi fish you have in the pond, and the bigger they are, the more oxygen is used up.

• Decomposing organic matter – fish and animal wastes, fertiliser run-offs, dead leaves, etc make up organic matter in the pond that requires a lot of oxygen to decompose.

• Submerged plants and algae – these take in oxygen in the night, which contributes to the drop of oxygen levels after sun down.

• Oxygen consuming bacteria – oxygen is required by aerobic bacteria in order to efficiently breakdown nutrients and toxic substances, like ammonia. The more nutrients and organic wastes are in the water, the more oxygen is consumed by these bacteria.

Presence of other water solutes and use of treatment products reduce DO.

Given these facts, it’s just logical to conclude that ponds and lakes need additional help to keep topping-up their exhausted dissolved oxygen supplies. However, some unconvinced pond owners argue that their ponds have been problem-free even without using pond aerators. Maybe so, but as your pond gets older, more organic sediments accumulate, fish reproduce, fish get bigger and aerobic bacteria multiply. Increased demand of oxygen soon takes a serious toll on your water’s oxygen levels and it is just a matter of time before problems surface up.



Source:
http://www.hydra-aqua.com/pond-supplies-uk/benefits-of-using-air-pumps.html