U.S. Water News Online
OTTAWA LAKE, Mich. -- Fat game fish break the pond's surface soon after Jim Crouch casts handfuls of food pellets on the waters.
Monster catfish, crappie, and bass dwell in the 25-foot depths of the 11/4-acre pond behind his home. The water is clear and blue-green.
``If you have a pond and you want it to be a healthy pond, you have to aerate it in some way, shape or form,'' says Crouch, a retired UPS driver who's developed a new business out of thin air.
Crouch sells windmills.
Windmills once were as common in rural America as barns, but most still standing are monuments to a bygone lifestyle -- a time when windmills were needed to pump water from the ground to irrigate cattle, crops and people.
Now they seem to be making a comeback.
Water-pumping windmills still can be had, but Crouch is selling air-pumping windmills to help country-dwellers keep healthy oxygen levels in their fish ponds and swimming holes.
One stands near the edge of his pond, its spinning prop a blur in an 18 mph breeze. Out in the middle of the pond, air bubbling up from beneath the surface breaks the wavelets caused by surface wind.
After installing his own windmill about five years ago, Crouch started Windmill's Pond Aeration, selling and installing kits made by Koenders Windmills Inc., a Saskatchewan firm.
Business truly has been brisk. He started slow but the business has grown and he now he's selling more than 100 a year, mainly in southern Michigan and northern Ohio.
Each windmill comes with a mechanical air compressor that is spun by a 6-foot-diameter, 12-blade propeller, directed into the wind by metal ``tail feathers.''
``All you need is a 5 mph wind to make 35 pounds of air pressure,'' Crouch explains. The compressed air is fed down a plastic tube leading to an air stone that diffuses the oxygen at the bottom of the pond -- an arrangement that's much like an aquarium but on a much larger scale.
The air circulates the stagnant bottom water, helps break down plant and animal waste and promotes zooplankton that consumes unwanted algae, Crouch says. Results are noticeable within two weeks of starting the operation.
``It's amazing how much it will clear up a dirty pond,'' says Bart Sarkisian, who helps Crouch build and install the windmills.
``The nice thing about it is you're not putting money into it all the time,'' Crouch says.
The windmills are designed to be used in place of the oil-less electric compressors that many pond operators have. Though compressors can chew up $35 to $40 monthly in electricity, the windmills use only wind power, Crouch says.
Crouch supplies 12-, 16- or 20-foot towers for the windmills. The kits are mainly galvanized steel and are anchored to the ground with a combination of steel rods and concrete.
Customers can assemble and erect the windmills themselves -- it's a 12-to-15-hour job -- or hire Crouch to put them up.
Prices for the do-it-yourselfer range from $750 to $850, depending on the size. If Crouch assembles, delivers and installs one, it can tack on another $375 to $550.
Jack Sturn of Monroe bought a 20-foot model about a year ago for his 1-to-2-acre pond. ``We've never had a problem before, but I do have fish in it,'' he says.
``So far, I'm real happy with it,'' he said. ``People come in and see it and I'm really surprised how much people pay attention to it.''
He said he disconnects it in the winter because children skate on the pond and the air stone will keep ice from forming.
``It'll keep a 12-foot circle of water open in the wintertime,'' Crouch explained, but that also benefits the pond by allowing more sunlight in, allowing gases to escape and keeping the water oxygen-rich despite most of the ice cover.
There's also an aesthetic advantage.
``It's a nice-looking piece of equipment sitting out there.''
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