The gully to pond project

[jinman]

The fluid comes out the holding tank cap.
It isn't overfilled.

Ron, my trailer has DA cylinders and is powered both up and down. If you are telling me that your reservoir is not overfilled, but fluid is squirting out the reservoir cap, I'd have to disagree. These systems can be quite different and I'd just have to see it to make any concrete suggestions.

My trailer blew out a "T" yesterday in the lift side. The fitting just let go and started spewing. Ron Hall and I ended up driving about 60 miles round trip and checking three places before we found the fitting. I bought two of them to have a spare. The place were we finally found it is an automotive parts place that specializes in parts for dump trucks.

 

[pacerron]

Ron, my trailer has DA cylinders and is powered both up and down. If you are telling me that your reservoir is not overfilled, but fluid is squirting out the reservoir cap, I'd have to disagree. These systems can be quite different and I'd just have to see it to make any concrete suggestions.

My trailer blew out a "T" yesterday in the lift side. The fitting just let go and started spewing. Ron Hall and I ended up driving about 60 miles round trip and checking three places before we found the fitting. I bought two of them to have a spare. The place were we finally found it is an automotive parts place that specializes in parts for dump trucks.

Jim,
They always say, " It never breaks, when your not using it."
Do you have some pictures of how you have your receiver hitch rigged on the tractor?
Is it a break away hitch in case you get a trailer load of dirt that tries to slide over the fill on the dam into the pond? You wouldn't want it to take you and the tractor with it...
I think the only practical way I could do mine is to get one of those rigs that
ties the 3pt together for 2 reasons.
1. The tongue on the trailer is quite high.
2. It is also quite short, which would put it too close to the rear tractor tires during a turn. It is almost as short as the wife's horse trailer.

What type of brake system do you have on the trailer?
I assume electric. Do you have a manual controller on the tractor so you can apply the trailer brakes as needed going down your hills?
It could be a real catastrophe if the trailer came loose going down a hill without breaks; with the tongue possibly climbing the back of the tractor and taking your head off or doing expensive damage to the back of the tractor.
So then the question becomes... use the safety chains or not?
There is always 2 points of view about safety chains, off road..
Most round balers for example come with a big safety chain. If you use it, you might save the baler from going off over the hill if the hitch bolt comes loose or breaks, but you might have it take you and the tractor on a rollover ride if your baling on the side of a hill. No brakes on round balers, yet, but even with a 2000 pd roll in them they are not as heavy as your trailer load of dirt.
I know you will be cautious.
Ron

 

[jinman]

Ron, I use the drawbar for heavy tow loads like you are supposed to do with a tractor. The ball on my drawbar is 2-5/16" and rated for 25,000 lb towing weight. I have safety chains in addition that are attached to my 3PH arms and a breakaway brake switch will set the brakes if I have a battery installed in the trailer. I DO NOT have the electric brakes attached to my tractor and do not tow at anything like highway speeds or down steep hills. I climb up the steeper hills with an empty trailer, but when my trailer is loaded, my tractor doesn't have the traction to tow up steep hills and I pick a path that will allow me to go down gradual hills rather than steep grades. I could install a brake control in the trailer's hydraulic box and use its inertia to control the brake, but I have not needed that so far. If my tractor brakes fail, I'll use the bucket and slow my movement that way. The real safety factor is that with a tractor you do things very slowly instead of at highway speeds where bad things happen very quickly.

 

[jinman]

I fertilized my little pond about 1-1/2 weeks ago. It is doing just exactly what the experts said. The plankton growth has exploded and the water is so green you can't see over 18" down. The little fish are feeding on the plankton and there's a lot more surface activity. I have two pictures below. The first one is a partial photo from a couple of weeks ago and one from yesterday showing the whole pond and difference. The green water is impossible to miss. The bottom of the food chain has been established.:thumbsup:

 

[pacerron]

I fertilized my little pond about 1-1/2 weeks ago. It is doing just exactly what the experts said. The plankton growth has exploded and the water is so green you can't see over 18" down. The little fish are feeding on the plankton and there's a lot more surface activity. I have two pictures below. The first one is a partial photo from a couple of weeks ago and one from yesterday showing the whole pond and difference. The green water is impossible to miss. The bottom of the food chain has been established.:thumbsup:

Good job.
Sure looks a lot more natural than the fake blue aqua shade stuff that a lot of folks use. Looks like a blue sky day in your second picture compared to a cloudy day in the first, which grossly effects water color, but the second one with the green looks very natural.
As you know, only a tiny minuscule of folks have calibrated monitors and they use a variety of browsers, so the colors they see may be different from what you see on your monitor.
Your LG CF360 is doing a nice job.

 

[bikerdib]

A real green up you have going on there. I recently applied Hydrated lime and aluminum sulfate to my new pond to clear the suspended clay. After a week the water clarity went from about 1 inch to about 20 using the white disk method. I then applied the pond fertilizer (liquid 10-34-0) and have some green in the water but nowhere near what you have. I prefer taking small steps instead of big leaps. I'm not trying to tell you what to do but I'm sure you are aware that too much of a good thing can turn into a bad thing. Too much plankton works to produce oxygen during the day but can cause a fish kill during the night because it actually will remove oxygen from the water.

 

[bikerdib]

Good job.
Sure looks a lot more natural than the fake blue aqua shade stuff that a lot of folks use. Looks like a blue sky day in your second picture compared to a cloudy day in the first, which grossly effects water color, but the second one with the green looks very natural.
As you know, only a tiny minuscule of folks have calibrated monitors and they use a variety of browsers, so the colors they see may be different from what you see on your monitor.
Your LG CF360 is doing a nice job.

I hate the fake blue stuff. A pond with that in it reminds me of water from a porta-pottie. :laughing:

 

[jinman]

I then applied the pond fertilizer (liquid 10-34-0) and have some green in the water but nowhere near what you have. I prefer taking small steps instead of big leaps. I'm not trying to tell you what to do but I'm sure you are aware that too much of a good thing can turn into a bad thing. Too much plankton works to produce oxygen during the day but can cause a fish kill during the night because it actually will remove oxygen from the water.

Considering that the experts recommend 25 lb per 1 surface acre, I probably went way over with my intention of getting a surge of plankton growth by adding 15 lb of fertilizer over a 2-day period. I'm sure that half that or less would have been sufficient. Of course, I thought we'd get a bunch of rain from the last big storm and it barely rained at all here. My plan was to over fertilize and then have runoff into the 2nd pond to get it started. I've got my fingers crossed that I didn't over fertilize. If I see signs of fish dying, I'll get an aerator going. I'm guilty of thinking that fertilizer would have minimum effect and it turns out just the opposite. It really gets things revved up. At least I don't see signs of any algae.

EDIT: I said I don't see signs of algae, but plankton is really algae. What I don't see is weeds or thick pond slime. It's probably too early in the pond's life to see those anyhow.

 

[pacerron]

. At least I don't see signs of any algae.

EDIT: I said I don't see signs of algae, but plankton is really algae. What I don't see is weeds or thick pond slime. It's probably too early in the pond's life to see those anyhow.

Nature is really in control no matter how much we try to out guess it

Yesterday we went by a 2-3 acre pond on the way to town that is beginning algae production.
I need to stop and talk to the guy. He has to be producing algae on purpose.
He constantantly aerates a circular fan pattern about 3 ft high and 6-8 feet diameter. In the summer the pond will be completely covered with rich, thick green/blue algae, even around the aerator, when we pass it at 8 a.m. and upon our return a couple hours later it will be completely cleared off and gone from the site. This cycle appears to repeat about every two weeks or so in the summer. There are horses in the field around the pond. Maybe he is selling the algae to a drug/vitamin company?

 

[jinman]

Maybe he is selling the algae to a drug/vitamin company?

Didn't some research show that bio-diesel could be made from algae? They have to get the algae somewhere to do the research. I suspect that labs prefer to buy the algae rather than make their own. Still, a whole pond full at a time seems like a lot.