Oxygen - why you need it!

Did you also know that it is IMPOSSIBLE to over aerate your pond using conventional air pumps?

Nigel Caddock NI

Heads up - there is a new generation of air pump. Produces more air, uses less energy, is even more reliable, and costs less.

Too good to be true?

For once the answer is No it seems

Did you also know that it is IMPOSSIBLE to over aerate your pond using conventional air pumps?

We recently visited our very good friends Tony Roocroft, William Kelly and Hannes Uys of Happy Koi in South Africa (incidentally, many congratulations for their major successes in the recent RSA national show where they supplied Supreme Champion and a barrage of other awards!), when the issue of effective Koi pond aeration was one of the agenda items for discussion.

Johannesburg is almost 3000 above sea level and in all the systems we visited there was not an air pump in sight! So what you may ask? The ability of water to retain oxygen at 3000 above sea level is 20% than that of the same water at 300! The really scary thing is that there are many Koi enthusiasts all over the world, keeping Koi at relatively high altitudes, and, if the RSA experience is anything to go by, blissfully unaware of the risks they are running. Happy Koi are one of the first Koi professionals in South Africa to address this issue.

This has inspired us to revisit the whole topic of aeration, so as they say in the movies 'play it again sam' we make absolutely no apologies for this as we regard it as crucial. 

There can be little debate that of all elements available to us, oxygen is not just the most effective but also the easiest to deploy and increase, and, it also has just about the shortest downside list on the planet! In pursuit of this we believe its worth revisiting some of the basics, perhaps the most important of which is that dissolved oxygen is the giver of all life in aquatic environments in general and Koi ponds in particular.