How to Properly Size Your Pond Fountain

While there are many factors that go into choosing a pond fountain and the type of pond aeration, the two most important factors that determine the size of your pond fountain are the size of your pond and the amount of fish that will be living in you pond.

The size of the pond is critical in determining the amount of flow required to turnover your pond.  While larger bodies of water like lakes and large ponds may need less turnover partly due to aeration that takes place at the surface due to the wind, ponds of 2 acres or less as a general recommendation will need to be turned over 7 to 8 times per day.  This means that the pond fountain pump will need to be sized large enough to handle approximately 8 times the volume of the pond per day.  See the chart at Estimating Pond Volume in Gallons for a rough estimate of the amount of gallons you pond holds.

Aeration is a key component in ensuring the health and promoting the growth of your fish.  Every fish in the pond will use some of the available oxygen and this oxygen depletion must be taken into account in order to properly size you fountain.  The extreme example of this is fish farms which due to the large amount of fish per given volume, experience a very large oxygen depletion rate and thus require aeration at rates much higher than a standard pond.  Consequently, if you have a residential or farm pond that you want to use to develop a habitat for large bass, crappy or other large fish, you will want to increase the aeration to ensure the development of your fish.

For most pond owners the size of the pond is sufficient to determine fountain requirements, as the fish are a lesser component of the overall sizing.  But for any pond owner, the more aeration you have, the better your fish and other wildlife wil be able to thrive.