Fresh Water Treatment Systems Ltd. has been in operation since 1981 and has had involvement in projects in 35 countries. Its primary focus has been the remediation, maintenance or enhancement of surface water bodies of all kinds that are exposed to all the variables of nature. After a hiatus of several years we are returning to our roots. We are providing service to the world wide community through the supply of various aeration system components such as Oil-less Piston Compressors, Header, Gauges and Valve Assemblies, Ballasted Air feeder Lines and Air Diffusers.
The title of this article is a bit misleading in that it would seem to be dealing specifically with safety issues related to open water ice fishing. Not so. There may be food forthought here for anyone who lives in close proximity to any kind of open water in winter.
CAUTION!!! Set your compressor, generator and anything else you value well away from the aeration hole because the ice will melt at approximately 1 inch/hour vertically.
For the fisherman’s safety he must understand the ice fishing system's extremely powerful ability to melt ice.
Millions of small air bubbles rising from the diffuser you’ve lowered into the water cause upwelling and circulation of water in the area around the diffuser. The small of your bait is circulated to a wide area the way the smell of bait moves downstream in a gently moving river.
Those same millions of small bubbles create vibrations in the water that attract fish without making bubbles so large that the vibrations would be uncomfortable to the fish.
It creates a distinct zone or micro climate of water around where you’re fishing with a more comfortable temperature for the fish by upwelling water to the top from the warmer layers below.
It creates a zone around where you’re fishing with a higher oxygen content in the water which fish are attracted to as they are likely to be stressed by low oxygen levels that may be occurring in the rest of the lake.
Measure out the intended depth of the diffuser insuring it is a minimum of 3 feet above the bottom of the lake.
To give you an example of just how powerful this small aeration system is consider that the ZW280D2 1/3 hp compressor used here is the same unit that is used as the heart of a lake aeration system. Combined with 250 feet of the superb ADS LWA3 diffuser, laying in fifteen feet of water, this combination of the best compressor and the best diffuser will turn over around 900,000 US gallons of water or 3.4 million liters of water EVERY HOUR.
For the sake of convenience for a temporary user such as someone just out ice fishing for the day, we take the same heart and lungs plugged into a small generator and mate it up to a diffuser that can simply be dropped down an ice auger hole to a depth of two or three feet above the depth that the fish are suspended at and voila! You are attracting fish and making the habitat better for them at the same time.
By using a smaller single point release diffuser that releases a cloud of bubbles to the water column the transfer of oxygen to the water is very good but the mixing rate is reduced. This results in a safer more controlled environment for the fisherman and a smaller zone of more highly concentrated oxygen for the fish.
Safety for the ice fisherman and the fish is extremely important because this small system is so powerful.
For the fisherman’s safety he must understand the ice fishing systems extremely powerful ability to melt ice.
It does this by extremely effective transfer of heat stored in water into the surface ice. Consider that one BTU (British Thermal Unit) of energy is enough energy to raise one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit. A US gallon of water weighs about 8.3 pounds. This small system could turn over as much as 100,000 gallons per hour or 8.3 x 100,000 = 830,000 lbs of water per hour. The water at ice level is at 32° F or colder which is why it is ice. Water at the bottom approaches the temperature of the ground which may be around 47° F. If you were to turn water from the bottom to the top at 830,000 pounds/hour the potential heat transfer per hour is: 47° F - 32° F = 15° F = 15 BTU’s/pound of water x 830,000 pounds = 12,450,000 BTU’s/hour. To put it into perspective, if you live in an average size bungalow with an old style average efficiency furnace it can generate heat at around 60,000 BTU’s per hour so this ice fishing aeration system can put the equivalent amount of heat on the ice as 12,450,000 BTU’s ÷ 60,000 BTU’s = 207.5 of your furnaces.
The explanation is not perfect as heat is not transferred to the ice at a rate of 100%/circulation and since when water is aerated there are 3 distinct zones of circulation created governed by changes in water temperature and water density.
