Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Soil questions Leaking badly

Hi all, I'm new here... looking for input with my situation. I bought 80+ acres in upstate NY that is divided pretty much in half by a gully with a consistent flow of clear, cool spring water. The previous owner had a 36" culvert pipe he planned to put in the bottom & build a road over the gully, it's too steep to easily cross otherwise. I decided to attempt a dam & put the pipe near the top of it instead in order to have a trout pond. We hit a great patch of clay near the top (inlet) part of the pond that we used as the foundation of the dam. I made a ball of this clay & it hardened like lead and is about as dense. The footer is about 4 feet under the creek bed & about 8 feet high overall. The clay ended about halfway (pond was dug to be about 100' long, 50' wide at the dam, tapering narrower as you go to the inlet) where the soil became sandy. We dug down about 18' in front of the dam and it gradually gets shallower as you go to the inlet. It is spring water that is flowing, it doesn't run higher, even with a 1" rainfall but consistently runs about the volume of 3 or 4 garden hoses running full blast. It filled to within about 5' of the outlet pipe last week then slowly dropped about 8 inches to where it has remained at that level. 6' to the outlet is a lot of water left to fill but it is obviously seeping out somewhere pretty badly. My questions...
A) Might it still seal & fill?
b)If not, can I dump a bunch of clay in next year without draining it and butter the whole thing with a foot or two of clay without draining the pond first?
I'm thinking the level it dropped to is the area where most of the seepage is occurring, there is NO water at all getting by the dam, the old creek bed is bone dry. I'm leaving on vacation in a couple hours with no internet access, look forward to your input when I get back... thank you!

Filling up...



View from inlet...



Level where it's settled after a week... not much different than previous pic, just clearer water.

One never knows for sure with a leaking pond. I do think you are correct in your assessment. Yes many ponds leak a little at first and then self seal but not all. There are examples here of ponds being sealed later by adding clay (bentonite) but that does not always work. Do a search for bentonite and it will show you a bunch of threads.

Leakage is probably in all the side walls from dam to the inlet. There could easily be gravel veins along the current shoreline.

I would be tempted to take a trash pump and see if you can lower that level. That might let you get a glimpse of where the water may be leaving (sounds like it may be all around it, instead of just one spot). You might get lucky and see an area where the water may be backflowing as you empty/pump the water.

Otherwise, I would be prepared to line and compact the entire pond with clay. Do it once, do it right, you'll be glad for it. Sure you can wait to see if it seals on its own too. Just depends if you have the patience to wait for a year or two.

Just got back from a weeks vacation & stopped by to check things out. The water has dropped an additional foot or so- still no water in the streambed close to the dam but about 50 yards downstream the water begins to flow again. It appears the water is running through the ground to the streambed downstream of the dam. The small digs we did in the solid clay lower on the property have filled & have frogs living in them already... so.. the plan is to dig one or two ponds in the clay next year, bring some clay up to this pond and line it. Trout pond & swimming up above, bass & gills down below. It was worth a shot seeing if it would hold on it's own, I'm really not out anything but a little time. Thanks for the input & the welcome!

Well... I'm still finding out if this will work or not. I took my 81 year old Dad up to the blind I built for him which overlooks the pond the other day and to my delight... the pond was full! And Dad took a nice doe... great day! Now I just have to wait to see- did it just fill because the increase in flow from snow melt was greater than the rate of leaking, or has all the up & down the water level has done finally sealed it? Time will tell. I would like opinions as to which type of fish might do well here. I was thinking rainbow trout but I'm open to suggestions. Can rainbows do well with bluegills?
Thanks! Tom

That's nice Hollywood. Your dad looks cooooold with that Rudolph nose and cheeks and chin. LOL Wow nice deerstand!

I hope you don't mind but I included your PM to me asking about trout and trout ponds below to share with others.



No they don't reproduce. I plant all males if I can, anyway, as that is what the taxidermists that are my customers of trophy size brook trout want.

I have been purchasing 6 to 10 inch trout from a supplier in Michigan. I have found a source for triploid and diploid eggs of brook, brown, rainbow, and tiger trout and at some point will probably hatch my own for lots of reasons.





I feed the floating pellets. Since my pond is only 1/10th acre and I have over 100 2 t 3 lb. brook trout in there, there is no way there would be enough natural feed. They'll be 4 to 6 lbs. this time next year.





If it's too warm for brooks it's probably too warm for rainbows. Browns are the best at marginal water conditions.

You may be still be able to do it with 15 gallons a minute in a 1/10th acre pond if your banks are steep and you stay conservative on the number of trout. By summer you wouldn't want to run your diffuser in the daytime, and maybe even less than that to keep from warming up the pond by mixing surface warm water with the deeper cold water.

You might want to consider gravity dropping your spring water to aerate it and feeding it into the bottom of the pond without using a diffuser to mix the water column in the summer.

Oh as far as how rainbows will do with bluegills -- it will depend on the water temps. Mid range in the upper 60's won't be optimum for the trout and too cool for good bluegill growth. If it's cool enough for the trout it will be too cool for the bluegills. If it's warm enough for good bluegill growth it will be too warm for the trout.

If you're considering trout I would strongly suggest NO BLUEGILLS! In a pond that size you would probably end up with small slow growing bluegills. If you start out with the trout you can always catch them out. With bluegills you will have a problem getting all of them out.

BTW are you sure your pons is 1/10th acre? Seems much smaller but of course pictures can be deceiving. However smaller is better for keeping the water cool as it doesn't require as much flow. And trout don't require a lot of space. As long as you have flow and the D.O., and water tempss stay 55 to 65 in the summer you are good to go if you don't overstock.

Here is my 1/10th acre trout pond. 88 by 59 feet. Max depth about 8 feet.



Here's what it looks like almost empty. The picture is very deceiving. Nowhere near as deep as it looks.

Thanks for you reply! Dad did get pretty cold that evening... I told him to bring his little heater because the one in the hut broke but I got the "naw, I'm fine, it's not that cold". He warmed up quickly after he shot- just like a kid again. This pond has steep banks and wound up about 15' deep after the sides quit caving in. I don't think I'll need a diffuser- the spring that feeds this pond is a series of little waterfalls before dumping in- for a LONG way down the mountain. I'm intrigued about your raising of brookies that size... pretty cool! This pond will be for swimming & trout but I'm planning one in 2014 that will be larger in surface area but maybe not as deep. It has a good spring flow also. I have room for at least 5 ponds on the land and hope to add them as I can. It's a blessing to have this resource- LOTS of good info & experience here on this forum- thanks for taking the time to share yours! Here's a pic with about 5' in the bottom as it started to fill...


I love the setting where this pond is- it's a beautiful spot-



This is a test hole we dug at the next site. It's pure clay- going to be a breeze compared to the first site where more effort was going into the access road than the pond. I'm really looking forward to starting in at this site!

Just hope you don't have to deal with any otters. Is there a stream the springs eventually feed into?

Otters are a big problem as are beaver.

At this time there are very few (almost none) otters in our area. I say "at this time" because when I was young there were almost no coyotes or beavers- today there are many. I even see Bald Eagles around now and then. There are several other ponds I can see from the top of this property, I plan to talk to the neighbors that have them to see what they've experienced. I'll bet an otter or two could have a ball in a small pond like this.

Update... Well, the flow is way down and it appears the leaking has stopped! 70 rainbows have been quite happy in their new home for about 3 weeks now and 7 kids so far have had a lot of fun educating them about fish hooks. A couple have been fried up in a cast iron pan pond side. I hope to leave about 15 by the end of the year to see how they handle next winter. I couldn't be happier. The water is a beautiful emerald green and the setting is magic. I hope to be able to start #2 in a couple months, which will be about 1/3 to 1/2 acre and most likely home to bluegill and largemouth. This is a lot of fun!

Just came in from the pouring rain after picking a few hundred crawlers to feed the trout. Spoiled little buggers they are!

Hollywood,

Good to hear!

Spent much of last weekend sitting with my parents by the pond, watching and feeding the rainbows that have been in over a month now. It surprises me how much insect life emerges from the pond every day. That, along with the pellets, has turned the 'bows into chunky little rockets! There are a couple pairs of Baltimore orioles that have made their home around the pond and if you sit quietly there you may have deer , turkey , mink , coyote , fox or any number of different birds show up. The flow for this pond has slowed down pretty good a couple times this spring- so far it appears that the same amount of water coming in is going out the outlet pipe. I'll know for sure if the leaking has stopped once the slower flow of August comes but it looks pretty good from what I've seen lately. It's hard to explain how much even a small pond such as this adds to the enjoyment of a piece of property... we are just loving it!
Mother's day...