Another thing you have to think about with high capacity ponds is ammonia levels. The paddlewheel type aerators do a pretty good job allowing ammonia to evaporate out of the water. In the Mississippi Delta ("Catfish Capitol of the World" LOL) they mostly use paddlewheels attached to tractor PTOs so they can move them easily from pond to pond. Obviously if you only have one pond then a stationary paddlewheel works fine.
We never had ponds on our place in the Delta, but my uncle had ponds on the farm just south of us, so I only have indirect experience, but I learned a lot about the catfish business from him. His business partner had a PhD in catfish farming from Auburn. (Auburn has a very large fisheries department.) And, while I was teaching Chemical Engineerng at Auburn, I had a friend that was doing research on developing novel aeration systems for catfish ponds, and because of my indirect experience with catfish farming, we talked about his research ideas. He had a great idea for getting oxygen into the water, but not so great on removing ammonia, and that is what we mostly talked about.
We never had ponds on our place in the Delta, but my uncle had ponds on the farm just south of us, so I only have indirect experience, but I learned a lot about the catfish business from him. His business partner had a PhD in catfish farming from Auburn. (Auburn has a very large fisheries department.) And, while I was teaching Chemical Engineerng at Auburn, I had a friend that was doing research on developing novel aeration systems for catfish ponds, and because of my indirect experience with catfish farming, we talked about his research ideas. He had a great idea for getting oxygen into the water, but not so great on removing ammonia, and that is what we mostly talked about.
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