Any pond management people in here?

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The airstone bubbles are way too big. And the stones plug easily. If you aerate, you want diaphragm diffusers. Fountains also work well by creating water movement, as well as good air incorporation to the pond water. But it takes a lot of energy to throw water high into the air, as well as good nozzles are expensive if you want them to be durable. High speed water erodes...
 
The airstone bubbles are way too big. And the stones plug easily. If you aerate, you want diaphragm diffusers. Fountains also work well by creating water movement, as well as good air incorporation to the pond water. But it takes a lot of energy to throw water high into the air, as well as good nozzles are expensive if you want them to be durable. High speed water erodes...
what is better a aerator that sits toward the bottom or fountain? The worst areas are the sides of this island where it's only like 1" deep now. A fountain would be nice to look at, bubbles from below may not be as much.
 
Both is best. You may need to aerate in the deep area and circulate water to mix the waters. A micro-bubble cloud rising from the bottom moves the watervaround somewhat, but fountains are more effective for that.

perhaps search "natural sewage treatment" or something along those lines to start learning the subject. Youtube has already produced here a videoof questionable value. Find some engineering papers and companies. In a couple of hours you will know more about it than those in the video link here.

do not underestimate the value of tiny bubbles. No open hoses, no aeration stones...no homemade diffusers.
 
We used to live on a small man-made lake in NY. We were on the south side of the lake & got very little sunlight until the afternoon.
All the deciduous leaves would settle to the bottom & decompose into muck. I had a rope swing on a maple tree, & if I used it, I would sink 4-6" into that muck. Bought an aerator for about $700 on Amazon.com & hooked it up in 2017, turning it on in late Spring & pulling it in late October. In the time that it was in the water, I cleared the lake bottom of muck in an area about a 50 foot wide x 20 out from the shoreline. The bottom of the lake in front of the property is now sandy & muck-free. It definitely helped to remove the leaves every spring that had fallen the previous fall, but I'd swear by the aeration system. As I understand the process, the introduction of Oxygen into the water activates bacteria that thrive on the muck, & they tend do devour more. The device from Amazon was supposed to clear up to an acre of lake bottom, IIRC. The link to the system we bought is below...

Amazon product ASIN B00FM6DFPY