Pond cleaning questions (long)

[Taylortractornut]

Ron how much surface area do you have across the pond. The thing with the boxblade it would be better to pull it one way and the frame would be a bit simpler. The way Id do it would be to put a 2 wheel frame in front of the boxblade then a long tongue kinda low to the ground that he cable hooked into it. Then attach a rear pull ring or clevis low to the back moldboard. that way the tractor in the rear when its dragging it backwards it would raise the tail out of the ground and not want to flip backwards. Then on the front with the long low tongue on that side of the wheels it would pull the boxblade and apply a little down pressure to it but not enought to over dig. Ill try to draw a picture in paintshop of the setup. Ive studied this a bit as Id like to clean aout a few onds in my neighborhood.

 

[RonR]

Thanks Taylortractornut!

I'll be out there (it's an hour away) in the next two weeks and will take my GPS to measure some distances. Memory tells me its 100 yards across, but my memory's not too good.

I really like the idea of building it so it would be a 3PT operation, and run it off a bigger tractor. I'd think the control would be better, but of course, couldn't reach across.....

The nice thing is, it's not my pond, nor my headache, nor my $$$$$ that will be spent fixing it!

THKS.

 

[leaddog]

Ron-I really think that if you can siphon off some of the water you will beable to work in the pond alot better. If you have any fall just get some solid 4in or 6in drain pipe and start a siphon and you will lower the leval very fast. When I started mine it lowered it by over a in per day on seven acres with water flowing in. It is suprising on how much water you will beable to lower. At 10 ft drop it shot a 4in stream out over 4ft and made a small river. If you get the water down then you can get into the pond and do alot more work faster and cheaper. If you have any questions email me and I'll try and help.
leaddog

 

[RonR]

THKS Leaddog!

I'll get some pics next week. There is plenty of drop, so that wouldn't be a problem with a siphon. Might need to do it in August to keep from overfilling the second pond, which is below the dirty one.

Ron

 

[EddieWalker]

First a couple of links.

www.pondboss.com

Good source of information similar to this site, but pond based.

http://www.ponddampiping.com/syphon1.html

This has a diagram on how a syphon system works. The syphon idea is a really good one and might even help romove some of the silt.

I have a very similar situation on a half acre pond that silted up to the point I was getting multiple islands coming up.

I drained the pond, let it dry for about a month and instantly got stuck trying to dig it out. I have hard clay under the silt, but the silt will just eat your tractor.

I've just finished with the bottom today and started with cleaning up the banks. The silt is still wet. It's been almost 3 months and it never dries.

I'm using a 1 yard bucket on a tractor to clean up the silt. I had to dig under it and haul it out. I tried using a dozer, but it was slower and doesn't haul dirt very well.

It's taken me about 40 hours of tractor time to haul well over 1,000 yards out.

A trackhoe and dump truck could have done it in 10 hours easy.

Good luck,
Eddie