Adding air stones to an existing pond?

[kitenski]

Morning all,

I'm in the UK and have had this pond running for many years, in 2018 we deepened it to about 4-5 foot deep and added 5 Koi, sadly a heron took 4 and this year the remaining one was getting too disruptive and eating the various lilies so he was successfully rehomed here in the UK.

We've added 12 small goldfish, and from various readings it appears adding in air stones is probably a good idea. The picture shows the pond and existing stream, we have a gravity fed Lotus Clear Pond 25 filter at the top of the stream.

You can see we have some foam and the water isn't crystal clear, we realised the UV lamp hadn't been replaced for two years and that we didn't do our usual spring pond vacuum, so that was all done last weekend and the filter foam was also changed.

Questions is, do I drop the two air stones into the deepest part of the pond and just leave it running 24x7 for ever, or do I need to slowly introduce it? Or do I put one air stone near the waterfall and one in the deepest part?

Thanks in advance,

Greg

 

[WaterGardener]

Welcome. Lovely pond.

I would drop.the air stone into the deepest part of your pond. My pond has a very large one there, actually an air bladder on top of the bottom drain, and another one in an area of the pond that has little movement.

Yes, they need to run 24/7 forever

 

[kitenski]

I would drop.the air stone into the deepest part of your pond.

thanks, do I need to run it a little bit and then turn it off or just start it off 24/7 and leave it running? Was a bit concerned that it might stir up some gas or something from the bottom? But we did hoover out a lot of debris last weekend so perhaps it'll be ok?

 

[WaterGardener]

I would clean the bottom as much as possible before adding the air.

Also, don't throw out the old foam right away. That contains most of the beneficial bacteria for your pond. If it needs to be replaced, do so, but leave the old one in the pond for a few weeks to give the new foam a chance to colonize it's own bacteria.

 

[j.w]

@kitenski