The Setup

We keep saying “Our MARS Aerator utilizes Patented Double-Bubble Technology to both mix and aerate your pond.” That’s all well and good, but what do we really mean? Let’s see if we can clear that up…

A very brief introduction to diffused aeration: There are two types of diffused aeration. These are 1) Coarse Bubble Aeration and 2) Fine Bubble Aeration. The coarse bubble aeration technique utilizes fewer, larger bubbles. Outside of the MARS Aeration technology, coarse bubble aeration is rarely seen in the pond aeration field. Conversely, fine bubble aeration employs the use of more, smaller bubbles in order to aerate.

Due to the science behind these techniques (stay tuned!), coarse bubble aeration will never oxygenate as well as fine bubble aeration. Likewise, fine bubble aeration will never mix as well as coarse bubble aeration. There has to be some give and take either on the side of oxygen output or mixing action. That’s the way it’s always been.

I say thee nay!

This aeration-world status quo wasn’t good enough for us, and this dissatisfaction is what eventually lead us to Double-Bubble Technology. I’ll now see if I can try and explain how we (and you) are able to have our cake and eat it too.

The Players

Bubble #1: The Coarse Bubble.

Size: Larger than 2mm in diameter.

Skills Include: Mixing Water, Destratifying Pond Layers, Breaking down Nutrients

Catch Phrase: “Bigger is better.”

The Coarse Bubble is expelled from a tube in the middle of the MARS Aerator. Being a larger bubble, it causes a more violent displacement of water to occur. This water displacement results in a mixing of the pond water.

Think about heating water on the stove. As little bubbles start to rise, the water in the pot remains relatively still. But once the water begins to boil, larger bubbles are formed and rise to the surface. Then what happens? The water begins to churn about and you can see there is a definite mixing action occurring in the pot. The same basic principle applies to the effect of the coarse bubble on your pond. This not only reduces pond stratification, but also causes bacteria to come into close contact with nutrients, which helps to break them down more quickly.

Additionally, the larger displacement of water creates a suctioning effect that will gently pull excess sludge and stagnant water from the bottom of the pond. It will then be mixed in with the rest of the water and broken down by bacteria, leading to a much happier, healthier pond ecosystem.

Bubble #2: The Fine Bubble.

Size: Smaller than 2mm in diameter.

Skills Include: Possessing a High Oxygen Transfer Efficiency, Maximizing Surface Area, Long and Leisurely Trips to the Surface

Catch Phrase: “Less is more.”

The Fine Bubble is released through diffuser membranes, which expel up to 30-50 thousand bubbles per second. That means that in under a day and a half, fine bubble diffusers can release as many bubbles as there are people in the world today. In three weeks it can release as many bubbles as there are stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. Through an increased number of small bubbles, versus a decreased number of large bubbles, fine bubble aeration is able to release more oxygen into the pond due to its greater surface area.

Think about one large bubble, floating to the surface of a pond. How much overall bubble is touching the water? Now break that one bubble into a thousand little bubbles. The overall bubble-to-water contact clearly increases. More bubble-to-water contact means more opportunity for oxygen to be transferred. Additionally, fine bubbles rise to the surface of the pond much slower than coarse bubbles. By spending more time in the water, fine bubbles have more opportunity to transfer their oxygen to the pond. These are the main concepts behind fine bubble aeration and why it has a higher oxygen transfer rate than the coarse bubble. The higher the oxygen transfer rate, the more oxygen is released into the pond, and the healthier the pond becomes.

The Result

Double-Bubble Technology

With the combination of the coarse bubble and the fine bubble, pond aeration has never been more effective and efficient. The mixing of the coarse bubble combined with the oxygenating of the fine bubble creates an aerating force the likes of which have never been seen, in the form of the MARS Aerator.

You’ve got algae on your pond—or maybe you have nasty pond odors wafting into your house and mosquitos taking over your yard—and the solution you keep running into time and time again in your research is something called aeration.

But what is aeration? What does it do for your pond? How do you aerate a pond? These are all good questions, the answers to which escape most pond owners.

In order to help the average pond owner understand aeration a little bit better, we’ve put together a crash course:

What is pond aeration?

Pond aeration is a process by which oxygen is added to water, effectively raising the level of dissolved oxygen.  This dissolved oxygen is what fish use to breathe, and what other organisms use to keep your pond clean.

Two things are crucial in this process: aeration efficiency & mixing action.

High efficiency ensures that you’re imparting the most water at the lowest energy cost (basically getting the most bang for your buck), and the mixing action make certain that this highly oxygenated water is spread throughout your entire pond.

What does aeration do for my pond?

Aeration is integral to maintaining the appearance and aquatic health of your pond. The Mixing and Aerating actions perform four key roles:

1.  Reduce algae and clarify water by providing oxygen for beneficial bacteria to breathe—when these bacteria thrive, they rapidly consume the nutrient material in your pond that would otherwise fuel algae blooms and cloudy water.

Algae is also reduced through mixing. The mixing action both creates a turbulence that disrupts the algae habitat and circulates oxygen throughout the entire water column, allowing the safe bacteria to outcompete algae for food pond-wide.

2.  Get rid of pond odors by facilitating oxygen breathing, or aerobic, bacteria growth. When bacteria break down nutrients without oxygen, they release horrible pond odors!

Aerobic bacteria actually breakdown nasty pond odors before they reach the surface, keeping your pond smelling fresh.

3.  Provide fish the ideal habitat with aeration by ensuring that they have ample oxygen throughout the pond to breathe.

Fish health is also improved by the mixing action, as this destratifies the water column and avoids pond turnover (a twice-a-year phenomenon that sometimes causes the death of all your fish!)

4.  Limit mosquito breeding by mixing up the stagnant water they thrive in. What’s more, the oxygenating abilities of good aerators expand the fish habitat, allowing them to travel into shallow water and eat up the nuisance mosquito larvae.

What types of Pond Aerators are there?

On- Surface Aerators

Fountains: Pond fountains claim to aerate by launching water into the air. While this may look nice, it is relatively poor at adding oxygen to the water and costs a huge amount of money in electricity costs.

At the same time, fountains are unable to adequately mix lower levels of the pond. Between its poor aerating ability, its inefficient operation, and sub-standard mixing, fountains are a bad aeration choice.

Surface  Aerators: Surface aerators work in a fashion similar to that of fountains, except for they don’t offer a visually appealing spray pattern. So, not only is a surface aerator a bad, inefficient aerator—it looks ugly to boot!

Subsurface Aerators

Standard Diffused Aerator: Standard diffused aerators sit at the bottom of your pond, and are powered by a compressor onshore.

They release fine (tiny) bubbles at the bottom of the pond, which is fantastic at adding oxygen to your pond, but lacking in mixing—this is because the microbubbles rise too slowly to create a sufficient mixing action.

Windmill Diffused Aerator: Windmill aeration works exactly like standard diffused aeration except for one part—it uses a windmill instead of a compressor to push air.

Not only is the performance of this unpredictable because of the inconsistency of the wind, it also produces very small quantities of air (not nearly enough to oxygenate your entire pond!).

MARS Double Bubble™ Aerators: The MARS works just like a standard diffused aerator with a compressor onshore and a fine bubble diffuser on the bottom—gaining excellent oxygen transfer.

The advantage of the MARS is in its Double Bubble™ Technology, which combines both fine bubble efficiency with a component designed specifically for superior mixing ability: the coarse bubble static tube aerator.

This patented, synergistic combination allows the MARS to Mix & Aerate your entire pond, making it the most effective and efficient aerator on the market today.

For more information on the MARS Aeration system, visit our home page and watch the video on Eco-Friendly Aeration.