What would you do? Pond photos

[manganos]

I'm not sure what to do. My pond is quite low. I moved here last June and it has never really been full but we haven't had that much rain either. Its only sourch of water is run-off and hopefully I'll add some since I put drain pipes in from my downspouts and ran them to the pond. I'll attatch a couple of pictures.

 

[manganos]

another pic

 

[manganos]

last one. So what options do I have. Do I get some fill dirt and make the pond smaller? As you can see one section fills up decent. Everyones in the area is kind of low but I can't stand it anymore 8# bass are still living though

 

[Boone]

I think the first thing to do is to learn more about that piece of land. Is the water table normal of is it a cyclical abnormal dry spell? Why was the pond dug originally or is it natural? If the pond was dug try and find out why it was dug. Around here all the water in small lakes and ponds was about two feet lower last year.

 

[Dozernut]

manganos

It appears that in photo # 1, that your shallow end bottom is sand. I don't know if this was added to create a beach or if this is the composition of your soil. If it is a natural condition this is why your pond will not fill up. The only cure is to have a contractor dig out the shallow end and pack the bottom with clay or put in a liner. I can't tell how big the pond is by your picture, but if you have 8 lb Bass living in your pond and a good population of Bluegill, I would do nothing and enjoy the pond. You are fortunate, that is a nice looking pond.

 

[Alan L.]

The first thing I would do is try to find out from the previous owner or the person who built the pond whether it leaks or not. In our area if they hit caliche while digging the pond it will always have trouble holding water due to leaking through cracks in the rock.

Assuming it will hold water, you should concentrate on diverting all the runoff you can to it. This might involve diverting water that currently bypasses your property, or this pond.

When my tank (pond) was built, part of the contruction involved dirt work all around my property, and placement of a culvert under my driveway so that water that previously ran around my property would go into my tank. I have one more culvert location under a private road that my neighbor has agreed for me to put in, but I find that I have all the runoff I need. In fact, I have been working on my spillway to make the tank water level go down, as there are some areas that get flooded every time it rains.

Its amazing what a big difference a little bit of water diversion can do. Of course if it don't rain, that won't help much.

 

[Mrwurm]

Chris, I struggled with a similiar pond problem for several years. My pond was full when I bought the house, but I found out from the neighbors that it was full because the previous owner used to pump water into it from a nearby larger pond. As soon as I moved in, the water went down, way-down. I looked at putting in a dedicated well to fill it. I looked into enlarging it so I could get into a deeper vein of groundwater. I looked into having it clay lined and I looked into having a rubber liner installed. It turned out that filling it in was the cheapest and most permanent fix. My pond was man-made and I have seen other folks around me fill theirs in also. Not a great solution, but that's how it goes sometimes.

 

[BeeBop]

I think the problem to your quandary will be easily solved by draining your pond and digging deeper in other words giving it an ample reserve of water to overcome horrid conditions such as this $#@@ drought we're having. I see so many people have ponds dug and the pond builder builds it as shallow as possible to get out of there as quick as possible but still charge full price. I wouldn't go too extreme w/the depth but an average of 7' to 8' is best. I presume your dam is in good shape as that is where 99% of all leaks occur. Some builders use only red mud which over time this gets hard and cracks. I like to use a mixture of topsoil and clean fill to avoid this after I have cored my new dam. Good luck.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

You should be able to find out from the neighbors if the pond has a history of leaking. If it has you might find the best cure is to find a local directional drilling contractor. There's a product that's commercially made for sealing a pond. All you do is spread over the water and it settles down to the bottom and seals it. That very same product is what the directional drillers use to line a bore. Funny how it works but it costs half as much when you're using it line a bore.

The next thing I'd consider is finding out the typical depth of the water table. If the cost of drilling a well isn't prohibitable I'd consider a windmill.

Up along the Red River a friend just had a nice pond dug. He also had a well dug too. I hooked him up with a friend who has three directional drilling rigs for the compound to seal the pond when it leaked. And I reassembled, installed, and had the pleasure of seeing it work successfully, a windmill. It was a treat.

If you're in sandy soil and the water table is high then a sand spike well is the way to go. I believe you can get the spike at TSC.

What's neat about them is you attach the sand spike to a piece of pipe. Drive them into the ground. Attach another piece of pipe. Drive them further into the ground. You do this until you have reached water. Then you install the windmill.

 

[fishman]

Manganos,

I would wait and see if it fills up after a good rain. The key here is whether or not you have too small of a drainage, or a leak in your pond. If it fills up, and then quickly loses water (say 1 foot every week or two for a couple of months) you obviously have a leak.

Fixing a leaky pond can be expensive. I would contact your local Natural Resource Conservation Specialist (likely listed under Agriculture department in the phone book) to see if they can tell you what soil type you have. Check around to see if other folks are having your same problem. You don't want to fix something that isn't broken.

If you determine it is a leak, I would recommend breaching the dam and digging it out. Hopefully you will find clay and that can be spread out and used to seal the pond. If not, you then generally have two choices, sodium bentonite (a clay) or a liner. Unless you are made of money, a liner for your pond would likely be cost-prohibitive (> $10,000 acre). The sodium bentonite would be less expensive, if you have a local source.

If it is a small leak, you can sometimes fix it by dumping sodium bentonite into the existing pond while it still has water on it. This works best in the cases of a small, focused leak, perhaps at the base of the dam.

A well can keep a pond full, which is great, but it too is expensive.

Again, call your local NRCS or state fisheries office. They can send you in the right direction.