In this PondCast, we discuss the following questions with Sue and Patrick from Vertex Water Features about Pond & Lake Aeration.
- Vertex Water Features history…
- What was aeration like ten years ago compared to now?
- Why is Vertex bottom aeration a great option for HOA’s or retention ponds?
- If an HOA had to choose between a fountain and bottom aeration which would you choose and why?
- How can you get a FREE Aeration Design?
- Where to purchase a Vertex Aeration System?
Welcome to our pondcast with Platinum Ponds & Lake Management. Our goal is to give you the understanding of what you need to be a good steward of water, help you for the future, and preserve your pond and lakes beauty for generations to come.
I’m Richard your host and owner of Platinum Ponds & Lake Management. Today Sue Cruz, sales manager for Vertex Water Features the industry’s leader in pond and lake aeration, joins me. Sue holds a degree in fisheries of wildlife management from NC State and has been with Vertex for over ten years.
She specializes in aeration design. Two for the price of one! We also have Patrick Goodwin, a research biologist here at Vertex Water Features. He has been crunching numbers on the benefits of aeration on your pond and lakes ecology. Welcome to you both!
Sue: Thank you for having us Richard
Patrick: Thank you, Richard!
Richard: How’s the weather today is it in Florida today? Where are you?
Sue: Oh yeah! We’re in South Florida, and it’s beautiful and sunny not a cloud in the sky gorgeous 80 degrees.
Richard: We are two days away from April first, and so things are starting to grow, you are probably a few weeks ahead of us here in South Carolina and certainly in North Carolina. Trees already have left on them there I would guess?
Sue: Oh yeah we never stop down here!
Richard: We are just budding now, our pear trees have leaves and pollen is in the air and so we’re going to be dealing with a lot of algae issues here very soon.
Today we wanted to focus a little bit on the vertex in these aeration systems Vertex has been around for 15-plus years, and they’ve been pretty much one of the states of the art places where they’ve introduced this bottom aeration using a patented technology using micron bubble membranes. A lot of science has gone into this since1998 tell us a little bit more Sue about Vertex history.
Sue: Yeah I’d love to! Well, our main company is Aquatic Systems Incorporated, which was started in 1978 by the President John Gardner. Which is one of the largest lake management companies in the country and currently there are nine offices throughout Florida?
Early on John Gardner realized the benefits of aeration and how that could help his business and make his customers happier and how aeration benefits to water quality so much. At that time was around the early 90’s there weren’t a lot of manufacturers of aeration.
John Gardner being a biologist and very scientifically driven wanted to start his manufacturing company and also understand the science behind bottom diffused aeration systems. So that’s when we started, it’s been about 22 years that we have been leading the industry with aeration. Just really understanding and getting into the science, we’ve had our diffuser discs individually tested.
We kind of started out with the best of compressors and aluminum cabinets and the longest warranty. Over the years you know certainly many other manufactures had come into the picture and had imitated a lot of our product styles and warranties and such. We are working continuously innovating and coming out with new products and improving and just doing more science.
Richard: Now you’ve been in the industry for ten years with the vertex. What have you seen in the last five years as some the latest and greatest things that have helped the whole industry of pond and lake management as whole?
Sue: Well more than anything it’s just becoming very critical to improve water quality. I mean anywhere from large reservoirs with odor issues to droughts in parts of the country. I think there is just a lot of focus now on water quality, and a lot of people don’t want to you know keep treating these problems with the band aid, they want to get really to the bottom of what’s causing these problems with water quality issues and how to rescue our resources.
I think it’s just a lot more focus on the importance of freshwater in this world. Fortunately, I am in the business here you know pond aeration and lake aeration it helps almost all water issues that we face today. I think we are seeing a lot more homeowners, lake associations, and government associations looking into aeration.
I’ve seen our deal of network grow over the years. We are up to about a hundred different lake management companies throughout the world that represent Vertex Aeration. I have seen the industry grow a lot.
Richard: Now you have roots, correct me if I’m wrong, in North Carolina you went to NC State. What have you seen as you have traveled the country, how progressive is South Carolina, North Carolina verses say Florida or New York or Canada or even the west coast? Where are we in getting up to speed on this whole idea of bottom aeration?
Sue: You would ask me that wouldn’t you? Because you know my thoughts on that! I think that North Carolina and South Carolina are a little bit behind the times, but I think they’re starting to come around to the need and importance of aeration. I’m sorry to say that because and that is where I went to school.
I did bump into my advisor at a conference probably like eight years ago in Texas, and he talked a little down of aeration, so I was surprised. I think it’s coming around it is you know would know the ways everything is being built up and all the water quality issues that you guys see in North Carolina and South Carolina. There are so many golf courses and homeowner association, and you know fertilizers, and there are a lot of issues. It is one of the solutions, so it’s coming around.
Richard: We just appreciate you being on the pondcast, I think this is that first step in trying to educate North Carolina and South Carolina as a whole. I know Clemson University has a huge initiative that’s going on with the test product that’s about to roll out.
They’ve already started in Charleston. So we’re hoping to be on the edge to help North Carolinians as well South Carolinians you know to be more proactive in their ponds using fewer chemicals and certainly not using them illegally but certainly getting bottom aeration in as kind of a backbone in their ponds. Patrick we could pass the mic to you and just have a brief question for you Patrick.
Your the biologists here you like to crunch numbers, you like to research things. Why is the vertex bottom aeration a great option for say maybe even just like a simple HOA they don’t have a major pond its 1 to 2 acres? You know there’s this neglected area that we’re finding at Platinum Ponds & Lake Management is the focus on retention ponds and keeping up to codes with dredging and things of that nature maybe could speak a little bit to that?
Patrick: Absolutely! I think probably the two main reasons why an HOA president or board would want you to look into utilizing aeration management program. It has to do with reducing chemical use and two just increasing the lakes economic value. When people think about these two areas, it has to do with what aeration is doing to the lake and affects almost every aspect of the lake system.
When you talk about quality water phytoplankton, fisheries, and sediment quality. Also all of the benthic invertebrates so it affects almost or improves every aspect of a lake. Having aeration can go a long way with the lake management and reducing chemical an increasing the lakes economical value.
Richard: You know we’re finding HOAs just finding out that they’re liable for this retention pond in the middle their subdivision. They love the fish that can be added to it they see the following their mallard ducks or the dreaded Canadian geese, but you know there’s a lot going on underneath the water that no one can see.
I think from our perspective in this education process of our clients and members it’s hard to tell them about what’s going on underneath the water where you can’t see it. It’s not like the sign at the gate at the front entrance. What is going on underneath this water that they can’t see?
Patrick: Oh man that is a big question to answer in such a short podcast but essentially it comes down to what the goals are for the lake and what they’re trying to improve. Mainly at the end of the day, they’re trying to improve their esthetic looks of the lake which is why is causing all of those impurities that you would see like green algae and stuff like that and decrease in water depth.
There’s quite a bit that’s going on from a chemical standpoint, from a biological standpoint, and from a physical standpoint for that matter. So I guess I would have to throw the question back to you. What specific thing you are looking at and what goal do you have for your lake?
Richard: Well we are trying to prioritize every day with homeowners or a board sitting there, and we are looking at you know the cost factors of this retention pond. We are sitting with the golf course superintendent, and we’re trying to look at you know what is this pond in 5-10-15 years, and obviously, sedimentation removal is going to come up a lot of times in conversation and those costs for sedimentation removal are enormous.
Given that we’ve got erosion under control, and it’s true organic moments gathering up in the bottom of this pond just because it’s not aerated. They often come to us and say you know we’ve got sedimentation removal costs coming, or we need to remove sediment, or we want to buy a fountain. If an HOA had a choice to between a fountain and bottom aeration which would they choose and why would they?
Patrick: Well that’s a great question. First of all, I would like to kind of express what these actual pond for most of the HOA’s are and what their main purposes are. Most are storm water ponds and they help with flooding issues and a buffer against flooding.
They also are built specifically to be able to trap storm water runoff nutrients from going to you know more public water bodies. With that in mind, they are specifically getting a lot more nutrients and are aging a lot faster than a lot of these other ponds.
So during the aging process, there are a lot of environment or chemical conditions where you can maximize the life of these ponds by just simply getting good D.O. down there at the sediment-water interface. That’s something that can only be achieved what a with bottom aeration. Where you’re taking compressed air bringing it down to the bottom of the lake.
Where you’re increasing the DO right at that sediment-water interface. Which is a much different type or style of aeration type than a fountain where you’re only getting localize benefits right on the surface of the pond or lake.
You’re not mixing the lake and its entirety only getting mixing right on that surface. So when you talk about aeration benefits, fountains are going to be very limited in what benefits that you are going to be able to see compared to bottom aeration which has been shown and documented to affect really every aspect of the lake system.
Richard: Why don’t we pass the mic to Sue and ask her the same question. If an HOA had a choice between a fountain or bottom aeration what would you choose?
Sue: Sure! Vertex is a unique division to give a very honest answer because we do manufacture both floating fountains and bottom diffuse aeration. We can actually give the client what they want and what they need. You start out to see what are they looking for?
Are they looking for a beautiful display at the entrance in their neighborhood or are they trying to improve water quality? So that is where we start out. There are many benefits when it comes to water quality for aeration, so maybe they want both. As far as you know advantages over bottom aeration system over floating fountain system if water quality is your main goal that’s the way to go.
Plus the cost is far less up front for a bottom diffuse aeration versus a fountain. Operational costs and maintenance you’re not running electricity into your pond with bottom-diffused aeration. There are many benefits, aesthetics are not the main goal when someone is considering or concerned with the health of their fish, the way the waters smells, or muck accumulation.
There are many issues that could be wrong with the quality water bottom diffused aeration is the best. Now, of course, there has to be properly sized, and that’s where you and Vertex come in, and we can work together to figure out what the goals of the association are and how we can best tackle them in the most economical way possible.
Richard: That is what I kind of like about Vertex is they don’t necessarily take a cookie cutter design. So it’s not like you are flipping through a catalog you see this particular size you just throw this in and this works.
I appreciated that the pond life system because there’s a lot of folks that have that half acre pond or less and a floating fountain isn’t going to cut it if you are looking for the water quality. Describe to us what happen when you know when you have a larger system? How do we fit the systems with what you have as components?
Sue: So you mean as far as like a larger body of water?
Richard: What is involved in the design process you’re an expert in design and have been doing it for over ten years now. What typical process you go through in what do you produce for them?
Sue: Okay well I always start out with a goal. Whether it be in some parts of the country winter aeration keeping the ice open or they have bad water quality, muck reduction, and of course like that the first most obvious quality that goes into determining what system would be the right size for the body of water.
Is it one acre or is it 20 acres? Obviously, they have larger systems for different size bodies of water. We also take into consideration the shape if it’s and you know perfectly round with the deepest in the center your able to normally get away with your diffuser being centrally located versus if it’s you know long and narrow with arms and meandering by your water then you need more diffuser placements.
We always pull up or, at least, we always try to pull up an aerial map on Google so that we can see what it looks like from the top. Another very important consideration is the depth because we have had our diffusers tested independently on how many gallons of water per minute are lifted with a given amount of air at a particular depth we can actually size our aeration systems to circulate the whole body of water. The industry standard is one time per day.
All of those factors going into our calculations. Basically what we are sizing for now sometimes we may want to go with a higher turnover rate because there’re more nutrients, there is a golf-course that is getting a lot of fertilizer or you know it is a very aged body of water with a lot of accumulating of muck and other organic matter on the bottom. We take all that into consideration when we do an aeration design.
Richard: That’s awesome I just love the science behind it! I love the number crunching behind it! I love the solutions that are behind it and of course, you have done this with independent studies as well. So we’ve got all the facts and ducks in a row preferably that you need to be successful with retention pond or even a lake.
Maybe we can get together some other time Patrick and talk a little bit more about lakes in all the stuff that you’re working on in science in the nitty-gritty of your algae blooms and these types of things that are happening in the lake and how it aeration has an impact on it. I’m sure people are itching Sue, where can they purchase a vertex aeration system? Why would you purchase one?
Sue: Well as I mentioned earlier we do have about a hundred lake management companies worldwide, mostly in North America that represent our product. They are companies in the country, so ideally, an HOA or a pond owner would purchase a system through their local distributor.
This allows the local distributor to be able actually to do site visits and get to know the needs a little bit more for the customer. As well as continue with the maintenance program or if there are any issues after the fact such as warranty.
It just makes it a lot easier to have that local point of contact. So that is usually what we recommend. There are some parts of the company that doesn’t really have a distributors ship them. We do work directly with customers but for the most part we prefer that the end user goes through a distributor.
Richard: Well we appreciate it Sue and Patrick spending a little bit of time sharing this knowledge that you have. I know you’re both passionate about water about being a steward of water. We certainly value your time and your expertise today. Maybe we can get together some other time and bring more information to the folks here up in South Carolina and North Carolina.
Sue: Great! Thank you so much, Richard.
Patrick: Thank you for having us.
Richard: Thank you and you all have a great day!
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