What is the aerator to buy?

[BennyLava]

Which aerator is known as the one to buy? The most power efficient, longest lasting one is what I am looking for. Like pumps, I'm sure there are sorry aerators, and good aerators. Yall recommended me the Laguna brand pump, and its been a great pump so far. And it's a lot more energy efficient than other water pumps, even though it flows 2400GPH. So is there an aerator like that? I live with family so I have to make sure that my impact on the electric bill is as small as possible. Especially in these harsh economic times.

 

[bsr8129]

I got a pondmaster ap-60. About 2 months ago has been working great with no issues so far. Got it for 95 on eBay and very little power draw

 

[BennyLava]

Ok thank you for the recommendation. Anyone else have any ideas?

 

[Telkwa]

I don't have any vast aerator experience to draw from. All I can tell you is I bought several toy aerators before finally biting the bullet and getting one of these. It's still not an industrial-strength unit, but seems to be working out OK so far.

It only uses 12 watts. I hate consuming electricity on non-essential items, so I begrudge any pond-related draw.

About 80' of air line is included, which I appreciated. With the stones at about 2.5 feet, we're getting a respectable plume of bubbles that the fish seem to enjoy visiting every once in a while. That's with the aerator running at just above half power, using the little throttle wheel on the top of the unit.

I have a quick story to share, one that might help someone out who tries something similar. There's a fence right behind our pond. I'd always parked the aerator on a little shelf on the back side of the fence. I'd built a little roof over the shelf, but the aerator was essentially out in the weather. I got the idea from somewhere (this forum or the new aerator box) to situate the aerator remotely and run a long air line to the pond.

So I did that. Ran some poly tubing along the back of the fence from the pond to a shop about 70 feet away. Poked a hole in the back of the shop wall, stuffed a piece of PVC conduit thru the hole, attached an electrical box to the conduit so that the hole in the shop wall was protected from weather/insects/etc. Using drip irrigation parts, I capped both ends of the poly tubing and put four of those little barbs into each end, right near the caps. The standard drip irrigation barbs fit the air line perfectly.

So, inside the shop, the aerator feeds into four short pieces of the supplied air line. All four short pieces of air line feed into the poly tubing via drip irrigation barbs. At the pond end, there are four barbs that feed air to four lengths of aerator tubing, which go into the pond and supply the four stones that came with the Pond Aerator 4.

I was pretty proud of myself until I turned on the aerator. This was one of those things that was perfectly obvious afterwards and I felt like an idiot because it never occurred to me during construction. Since all four air lines were ganged together into the poly tubing, then split back out again at the pond, the air stone that was closest to the surface would froth vigorously while the other ones went dead. As long as they were all at an equal depth they all produced.

One of those "duh" moments for me. So I just make sure to keep them all equal. Another solution would be to buy one big stone and replace the four individual barbs at the pond end with one fitting for one air line.

 

[DoDad]

Matala has a 9" membrane air diffuser assembly that features a hollow base
that can be filled with sand or gravel. This eliminates the need for bricks
and straps to get the diffuser to sink. Available in both a single head or
dual head assemblies. Single head handles airflow from 1.4 - 4.2 cfm.
I will be installing it today in my small pond.

 

[bsr8129]

Telkwa how long have u been using that aerator? I bought one simlar different brand but looks just like it. I went through 3 of them the longest one lasted 2 months before it stoped pumping air.

 

[Oldhead]

My laguna optima almost lasted a year before the diaframs tore. The replacement is cheap but the shipping costs just as much as the part :regular_waving_emot

 

[BennyLava]

Matala has a 9" membrane air diffuser assembly that features a hollow base
that can be filled with sand or gravel. This eliminates the need for bricks
and straps to get the diffuser to sink. Available in both a single head or
dual head assemblies. Single head handles airflow from 1.4 - 4.2 cfm.
I will be installing it today in my small pond.

I don't understand this, I'm afraid. Why would you want your aerator to sink?

My laguna optima almost lasted a year before the diaframs tore. The replacement is cheap but the shipping costs just as much as the part

Have any idea on the power draw of that laguna?

 

[Oldhead]

4.5watts

http://www.azponds.com/New_webpages/New_air_pumps.html

 

[bsr8129]

The difusor goes on the bottom of the pond this where the air comes out if it's not the aerator

 

[bsr8129]

You also need to compare output along with watts

 

[koiguy1969]

that laguna is the same thing as a hagen optima or ultima...hagen makes laguna but are cheaper...once "pond" is in the product name or description the price skyrockets. i have the hagen its $30.00....looks and performs the same...3 years on mine still going but getting weak!! oh, the laguna equivalent was $70.00

 

[BennyLava]

Thanks I'll look into the cheaper version of the same thing.

 

[Telkwa]

Telkwa how long have u been using that aerator? I bought one simlar different brand but looks just like it. I went through 3 of them the longest one lasted 2 months before it stoped pumping air.

Uh oh, that's not good. We've only been running it about two months right now, at about 2.5 foot depth. Did the diaphragm(s) blow out? Or did it just break down and quit running altogether?

I imagine that most of you know this, but the deeper you set the stones in the water, the more stress on the little diaphragms inside the unit.

I've looked inside the toy aerators we'd bought previously. The mechanics are very simple. Two small pieces of spring metal with magnets attached to the ends (kinda looks like a tuning fork) are energized by a coil that has your grid AC power going thru it. The AC power rises and collapses at 60 Hz in the US and 50 Hz most other places, pulling the little tuning fork arms back & forth. The arms push and pull on the rubber diaphragms, which pump air. Sooner or later the diaphragms tear and that's when they stop pushing air. So if your pump is still making noise but not air you should be able to get new diaphragms.

If it's not making noise or air that's a different story...

DoDad, thanks for the pic of the single diffuser unit. That looks like the cat's meow.

 

[bsr8129]

the diaphrams did not blow out, not sure exacly why they stopped working. They would still pump air but very little to non compared to when I first got them. When i took them apart all diaphrams working in good condition, as you mentioned there are "tuning forks" that have magnets on them that go across a coil, i think that the magents got to close to the coil and would not operate fully, i tried adjusting them but could never get it to work properly again. funny thing is i bought 1 for around 40 bucks i think and they sent me 2 replacements for free so i can only imagine how cheap these are to make.

Maybe one of these days i will actually get them working again.