Friend has a small pond in OK. Just moved there. Bought a bubbler, and wants to know if he should run it during the winter. He looked online and could not get a clear answer.
Any advice?
Thanks in advance?
Ponds age
Size (surface area)
Depth
fish involved
If it has worked as is, for a reasonable amount of time it might well continue
Just a guess, but the dead of summer may be more critical
20 yrs old probably. Maybe an acre. 10' deep, bass, bluegill, catfish.
It really depends on your reasoning. It is not really necessary for keeping the fish alive and well. Oxygen levels stay higher and fish activity certainly slows down with cooler water. Keeping ice clear for waterfowl use is a definite plus especially if there is no open water around. Of course that can be a bad thing too. Added nutrients from the crap in the pond or along the banks isn’t always a good thing. But they sure are fun to shoot at.😁
I suppose the question is why wouldn't he run it it the winter? Do ponds freeze over in Oklahoma? That is our issue here in the frozen north and aeration in the winter is important to help prevent winter kill fish die off. Aquatic plants produce dissolved oxygen in the warmer months, but decomposition uses up oxygen in the winter. Summer and winter kill is pretty common in shallow man made ponds if there isn't enough dissolved oxygen. When we had trout in our small natural lake we did aerate it in the winter with a visible pump that kept a section open. The people that bought it are running two bubblers out in the deep water middle and I see that as a hazard for making thin ice. If your buddy's pond has an inlet and outlet with flowing water, then he probably wouldn't need to aerate it. Spring water is not a good source of dissolved oxygen. His catfish won't need near the oxygen content that the pan fish will.
It did freeze over for a little while and apparently that dies happen, but not like up north.
The concern I see is a deep bubbler mixing the warmer lower water with colder surface water.
Temperature shouldn't make any difference within reason to those fish species. Yes, they have a preferred temperature range, but it is the dissolved oxygen levels that will determine if the fish survive. Dissolved oxygen can be measured with a meter and if your friend doesn't want to buy his own, he can probably get the local natural resources people to give him some guidance.
Buy a fish feeder... you will cut in half the amount of time it takes a bream to get to 1lb