Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Soil questions Muddy pond renovation

This is my first post on the forum, but I've been reading for a while. It's been incredibly helpful to a rookie pond owner.

Last year we purchased a farm with two existing ponds. Really more mud holes than ponds. They had water, but 40 years of crop residue runoffs left them at about 3-4' with large portions under 2'. Not much good for a Nebraska winter. In addition they were constantly muddy (chocolate milk) and loaded with bullheads.

We decided the best plan was to breach the dams, let things dry and excavate the silt. We also plan to install the new pipe 12-18" above the old level.

After letting the ponds dry for 10 months we began the excavation last week. What we found was a little surprising. Just below the 18" of dry crust was a mud slurry. In fact, had we been using a cat and not an excavator we'd have an expensive fish structure in the bottom of our pond! Ultimately we got it done. Little more time (money) and we're planning to come back in the fall to do some final grading to the banks and set the pipes. We should have about 20% of the main pond at 10-12', another 20% at 8' and a good portion of the rest at 4-6'. However it's not a smooth bottom and we had to leave some "islands" in areas where the excavator couldn't reach. Those might be 4' surrounded by 10'.

Question 1) Is that going to be good structure when at full pool, or is it simply going to go soft and spread out on the bottom making the depth something like 8'?

Question 2) Does the fact that we ran into so much water below the surface after months of drying and little moisture indicate that we may have a spring or is this common in a pond with that much silt?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Welcome to the PB Forum treeplanter.

It can take 18mts of dry weather to dry up slop like that even when exposed.

Dig a few core holes in the pond and see if they fill with water seeping in.

You could compact and rock the islands sides and they would be excellent structure with small gravel spawning beds on top.

Another member in Newbraska. Greetings and felicitations.

Per Lusk, that bottom silt rarely if ever dries if thicker than - (drumroll) - 18". You probably have no unwanted source of added moisture.

I have never seen a pond completely and totally dry out. It can sometimes look like thick soup or lava when we hit. My advice is to take a long piece of rebar and push it down to see how far you can go till you hit solid ground.

Thanks for the rebar idea. I'll try that.

Even if we never get to solid ground...it has to be there somewhere as it held water nicely before. Ultimately if we get the depth we need we should be ok, right?