Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site My Pond Building Experience

I recently purchased 10 acres in Southern Indiana, and there used to be a 1/2 acre pond in the middle. You can see it at My Pond Google Maps. We have a lot of limestone in the area. I have noticed a very small depression (maybe a foot in diameter) in the area that used to be a pond. This may or may not be a sinkhole. I am going to attach pictures and update as I move through the process.

Thanks for all of the help!

Here are some overhead shots of the area I plan on getting built.

I think I would determine the viability of it(sinkhole) before proceeding with anything.

All of the excavating contractors I talked with didn't have many issues with it. They are quite aware of the area and that it does have some sinkholes. Here are some pictures from the ground level to give you a bit more idea of what everything is.



We had a few bonfires over top of the small hole so that no one would step in the little hole.







I dug it out about a foot and a half deeper to see what was going on and the dirt was much siltier compared to the clay in other spots. We had a big rain storm last night and this hole didn't hold any water.



Another hole about 40 ft away didn't hold any water either. This one looks to be primarily topsoil.



This was my hole in 100% clay and it overflowed with water.

Some more pics of the dry pond bottom. I am also in contact with a soil testing outfit in Louisville KY to hopefully get some samples over to him.

Final shots. I am having the contractor I choose to do the full work, just bring in his backhoe at first and dig out the sinkhole area to see what we are working with. If all looks good, we will proceed and make sure that we pay special attention in packing this area with his roller.

If you have a lot of clay then you have packing material; I think. I have no experience with sinkholes and I assume that the dozer guy does.

Went out yesterday and rented an auger to double check a few areas of the pond for good soil. My original hole that held water was still 3/4 full (but we have had a little bit of rain).

Here is a picture of the soil that came out of 3 or 4 of the holes. Look good?

Hey Duane! Hopefully if the weather doesn't mess things up, we will be starting on this project this week. Hopefully you can be there for some of it.

Well Kyle with S & M Nix Excavating came out yesterday with their high lift and skid steer and got to work. They actually found 2 sinkholes (eek!!) and removed a good portion of the dirt yesterday. He was really pleased with the clay that he found as it was a beautiful grayish brown color. My uncle had a pond built not very far from me and had bright red clay with tons of rock in it. So far mine hasn't had a single rock that I could see. He is bringing out his sheeps foot roller tomorrow for when they get the main bowl cleaned out and get to starting on packing it. I'll post pics tomorrow when I get to a computer (on my phone now). Right now it's just a big muddy hole in the ground but hopefully soon it'll be a beautiful pond!

I've kinda jumped the gun already and have all of my fish structure in the barn and the wood for a 12x16 dock plus the floating barrels. Can someone say cart before horse?

I don't think the cart is before the horse, usually people (me in particular) are scrambling to get things built after the pond is full.

Heck, my pond renovation was completed in August 2008 and I'm just getting the pier built this year.

They are just starting on the dam. They brought out their high lift dozer and a sheepsfoot roller. The 2nd day they had a skid steer for smaller, more nimbler work.



You can see the sinkhole in the right hand side of the pic here.





Here you can see in the last 2 pics that the dam is coming up slowly in steps.





Here you can see that the sinkhole is a good ways up the bank.

Pic of the sheepsfoot. The ground was a little mushy and it compacted quite a bit in some spots.








I'm not sure if you can tell, but the sinkhole was dug down to the rock layer and then packed back in about 4 feet. Hopefully the water won't find its way back down there. They couldn't see a hole in the ground once they made it down to that layer though. So crossing my fingers.

Final pics looking out from where our house will sit in a few years. Final bowl depth is about 6 1/2 - 7 feet. I was hoping for a little closer to 8-10ft, but with how muddy it was getting and all of the equipment was sinking they didn't want to risk it. There was only a few rocks in the entire dig. This really tells me that this was just an old silted in pond (as older satellite pictures have said).

Coming together nicely! Thanks for the update!

Not a problem. Without this Site I doubt I would be anywhere near ready for this type of undertaking. Now comes the hard part of watching my muddy hole in the ground turn into a pond. It is supposed to rain lightly for the next 2 or 3 days. Hopefully I will get to see a little progress. I need to go get my structure situated and grass seed planted as well.

After the thunderstorm went through today...

Well after only 1 more rain storm that has come through, we haven't picked up any level. I need a good long steady rain, and maybe it will start filling up. I know it's not guaranteed by any means considering what it was built over, but I sure would love to see the level rise.

It takes a lot more rain than one thinks to fill a pond just a little bit. The ground soaks up some, it has to rain enough to run off and if it has been dry, that could be a challenge.

My little sink hole pond is slowly but surely getting there.

So we didn't have much rain for the last half of the year, and the pond didn't pick up much level. Thankfully, it never fell either.

We had a weekend of rain recently (about 2 inches) and it picked up about a foot from its fall/winter low.

That seems like a small gain for 2" of rain. How much watershed do you have?

Not enough lol