Intake Considerations for Pond Fountains

Properly locating the intake of your pond fountain or aeration system is critical to ensure the health of your pond and maximizing the efficiency of your system.  The following are a few of the most important considerations:

Center your pond fountain intake - By centering the intake you are best able to turnover the entire pond.  While there will always be areas of stagnation, especially in irregular shaped ponds, by centering your pond intake, you will have the best chance of inducing flow to the largest percentage of your pond.

Find the deepest location - One of the main purposes of pond fountains is to ensure a breakup of the thermal stratification in the ponds.  This can be best accomplished by placing the intake at the deepest part of the pond, thus taking water from this sludge or benthic layer.  This will ensure that water is taken from the lowest thermal layer where it will be sent and mixed with the surface water.

Do not Agitate the bottom - A real concern is when you place the intake of the pond fountain too close to the bottom of the pond.  This will cause the sludge layer or benthic layer of the pond to be churned and will cause nutrients from the pond floor to be brought to the surface, thus decreasing the available oxygen