New 0.5 acre pond on our property

[rogerius]

The debate on where the fish come from is ongoing, but I agree that you will have fish in there. It's just a matter of time.

I dug my pond from out of the woods. We cleared trees and burned for almost and spend almost two years digging. It was bone dry several times and all the water in it comes from run off. I did pump from the creek and might have some sort of minnows in there from there, but I've never identified anything that small. I put in Flathead Minnows, Coppernose Bluegill, Channel Catfish and Large Mouth Bass. We have caught all those species, but also Yellow Catfish and Green Sunfish. Neither of those fish are in the creek, which dries out during the summer where I pumped the water from, and there are no ponds uphill of me that cold have overflowed and worked their way to my pond. The only way they could have gotten there is from the birds. Either eggs attached to their feet, or out their buts.

As for the spring at depth, that might be something to be concerned about. If the spring is down low, it could easily go both ways, either into your pond to fill it, or when the spring water table lowers, it will drain the water out of the pond and into the spring. The only way to know for sure is to wait and see what happens over the summer. Figure out your evaporation rate and know what to expect. If it leaks, those springs are where I would go to in order to stop it.

Eddie

Thanks Eddie for the input.

About the springs, we hope that we'll not have any surprises, otherwise it'll be an interesting and nice expensive landscaping. We had two test holes done for this pond at about 10 ft and the water table level was fluctuating almost 4 feet during the year(from 1ft to 5ft from the top). Also, a creek is running at 250ft from the pond on the south side and we hope some of the water will infiltrate from the creek. Here are other pictures from yesterday.

 

[wmonroe]

They are moving along quite well. That is a beautiful setting to have the pond.

 

[rogerius]

Finally they did it. After 7 days of digging and hauling, the pond is done. Digging wasn't a big task but to haul the excavating material 700' away and climb a small hill required a lot of diesel to burn. I attached couple pictures but unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate as was quite a foggy morning.

The question which I have for experts: what kind of grass do you recommend around the pond. About the trees, I'm planing to move some cedar around or do you have other recommendation?

 

[crazyal]

Nice looking pond. I can't build a pond. I've been informed that any body of water on my land has to have ducks (year round of course). Since I'm not willing to build a duck house and keep the water open year round I just dream.

 

[wmonroe]

Very nice!

 

[JeremyL]

Now you can have a New Year's swim party. Invite the neighbors!

 

[aginn]

Sounds like you are going with a lot of anti-freeze this New Years. Cheers:drink:

 

[walker450]

Looks great! Thanks for sharing.

 

[hslogger]

Here is a link to a fellow who I hired and recommend for information and consultation.The Pond Doctor

There is a ton of information out there, public and private. So, much consideration should be to native species in waterfowl, fish, plants,
chemicals, down stream or up stream, access to critters. It has to be more than a hole with water in it.
good luck.

 

[Bocephous]

Nice pond; I like the shape of it. There is a lot of info on this site that may be helpful to you.

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