OLD POND

[Jag]

Speaking of ponds, has anyone on the board every cleaned out a old pond. We have a small one that is about forty years old and now has filled in. It is now very shallow and has about two to maybe three foot of muck in the bottom. I was thinking of going ahead and draining it this summer when it gets low and cleaning it out. Will the FEL do the job?....

 

[Thomas]

Jag,
You may want to consider a dozer if there that much muck,not unless you have alot of time on your hands and the weather stays nice.


Thomas..NH /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

 

[Bird]

Jag, I guess it just depends on size, slope of terrain, how much time you have, etc. When my brother bought his place, he had an old pond that had not been touched in at least 40 years in a heavily wooded area; filled with rotting leaves, dead and fallen willows, etc. and shallow enough that it dried up during a drought. We cleaned it out with my B7100 with front end loader and box blade (several weekends). A couple of years later he decided it still wasn't deep enough and wasn't big enough, so we set up a siphon system and drained it; also used my little pump for the last bit. He then rented a dozer one weekend and we worked another 2 days with it and my Kubota, making it bigger and creating an island. Still not satisfied, he hired an expert on a dozer who did more in 10 hours than we could have in 40./w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif There's also a guy in this area who cleans out old stock ponds with a big old dragline so he can clean them out without draining them. So, you have lots of options./w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Bird

 

[Jag]

Thanks Bird, I would never have thought of someone using the dragline.

 

[rekees]

Jag

Agree with Thomas. Your best bet is hiring a dozer. Had cattails cleaned out of my pond. Hired an experienced guy with trackhoe. He dumped the muck over the dam and said it takes 1-2 YEARS for muck to dry out! After it dries he will be back with a dozer to level it out. I tried to move some of the muck with JD4300 and 430 FEL. It was David & Goliath. A compact tractor just isn't designed to do that type of heavy work.

Chuck in IN

 

[ERNIEB]

Jag, This is probably not an option, but I thought it was amusing, and it fits your question. A friend of mine does among other things, dozer work. He was hired to clean out what Texans call a stock tank, a pond. Trouble was that the muck and mud was too much for his dozer, so he got another fella with a larger dozer. That one couldn't handle it either.
One of this energetic pair had somehow aquired a bucket off of one of those gigantic front end loaders. They used the large dozer to pull the bucket thru the pond with heavy chains. Also using chains, the smaller dozer was hooked up to act as sort of a tilt on the bucket. They cleaned out the whole pond in this fashion. Later my friend told me," We broke alot of chain, but we got it done". /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif Where there is a will, there is a way.

Ernie
"It will be appalling to you to learn, and see herewith inclosed our alarming weakness"
James C. Neill, Alamo commander Jan. 1836