Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? Please help me fix my pond

Hi,

I need some help with my 40+ year old, 3/4 acre, run-off filled, farm pond in Iowa.

When the pond was built they pushed the dirt to form a dam which is roughly 8-10 feet wide. Over the years, trees have started growing on and around the dam. Some of these trees have gotten rather large with trunks measuring up to 6-8 inches in diameter. I like the trees, but a neighbor of mine told me I should cut the trees down because bugs can eat the roots causing leaks to form in the dam. Is this even possible?

My next question is basically, should I drain the pond or what should I do to make the pond healthy?

The following is random stuff about the pond:

The owner before me completely neglected the pond and really did nothing to help the property.

When we first bought the acreage and fished the pond we only caught small Bullhead Catfish. Last spring, we contacted a local fish breeder and bought their recommended mixture of fish. We ended up getting some Bluegill, Hybrid Bluegill, Crappie, Bass and a couple of grass cats.

We fished it a couple of weeks ago, but only caught small Bullheads again. I guess we could of just had bad luck or maybe the fish are still too small. My opinion is that the pond wasn't healthy enough causing them to die.

The pond is home to 6 Geese and 3 Muscovy Ducks. I put in an aerator to keep the pond from freezing.

When full, the pond is roughly 8 feet deep. The bottom has about 5-10" deep of some nasty, stinky, disgusting black mud covering it. Also, the water clarity is less than a foot.

Last fall we dug part of it out and made it about 15% bigger, and a couple of feet deeper in some places last fall.

The only thing that seems to be thriving is duckweed.

Here are some of the things I have considered to fix the pond:

a) Pump out the pond using a larger trash pump and try to remove most of the yuck off the bottom. I have even considered completely draining it.
b) Build a silt pond at the point where most of the run-off enters the pond.
c) Use a herbicide to kill off the duckweed.

Do you have any suggestions? We need all the help we can get.

Thank You

Welcome to the forum!

I think that with your eutrophic pond, the best long term fix would be drain, rework the dam to remove the trees, clean out all the muck, re-compact the pond basin and start new. Get a legal pad and start making notes. Write down your goals for the pond and start researching. The Fall is normally the driest time of the year, and that would give you time to get a renovation plan together.

Welcome also... I like your b,&c options. a/ there is a bacterial muck reducer (bacteria eats the muck). If possible, take some trees and all the bullheads you can get out. I'd hate to see you lose all the fish you just bought. Just curious, what type of crappie did you put in?

Thank you for the welcomes and replies. If I end up reworking the pond completely it would have to be a year from this fall. I have plenty of time to consider that option. Should I go ahead and cut down the trees on the dam this year? I could rather easily build the silt pond this year after a bit of research. Is there any harm to adding the muck eating bacteria either way? Also would using a trash pump on the bottom be a waste of time? I figured I could build the silt pond and run a pump around the bottom of the pond and basically take the water down to say half while trying to pump out much of the muck? What should I start googling to find the correct muck eating bacteria?

They are Black Crappie. I'll fish the pond more and see if I catch anything other than Bullheads.

I'll have to think about the best way to remove the Bullheads. Any thoughts on that would be great.

We caught on line and trapped 8 bullheads out of our old pond. Have went about a week without getting any bullheads in the fish trap. So either we have caught most of them or more likely we have caught all the dumb ones or ones large enough to stay in the trap. I was glad to get those eight out of there though, as most if not all would have been large enough to spawn later this summer. So a fish trap is one way to catch the bullheads without sitting at the end of a fishing line. A cut up BC would be good bait for the fish trap.

Esshup probably has the best long term solution, but it makes catching any decent size fish a long ways off by the time renovation is done, fish stocked, and they grow up. If you go this route, I would also suggest you look at your options of how much land you have and any area that could support another pond. It it likely you will spend as much if not more on cleaning out your current pond as building a completely new one. If you have the land and location, leaving the old pond as is and building another brand new one might be a better option. What about just building a brand new pond where you are thinking of building your sediment pond? Let the overflow pipe fill the old pond. Just giving you things to think about. I have renovated three ponds so far with my own equipment and have built one 3 acre new pond as well as a micro forage pond and just finishing a quarter acre sediment pond. I can tell you from experience, building new is a lot more fun from an equipment and time standpoint than cleaning the muck out of an old pond. But if your pond is strategically located, like in front of your house, cleaning it out or otherwise renovating it might be your only option.

As far as the trees, that is a judgment thing and kind of depends on what your future plans are. For example, if you were going to try and work with your current pond without completely draining and cleaning it out but with the thought of doing so in the future sometime........I would cut the trees, deaden the stumps and hope for the best. The roots as they die might or might not create a leak, but if they do it will probably take at least five years for it to happen, and by then you may be ready for drain and excavate anyway. Or if water use is not a concern, leave the nicest treas for the time being and hope they don't die or the roots cause another problem. If they do, it might be five years down the road and you are ready to drain and clean out anyway. See what I am getting at? If you kind of figure out your future plans, you might get some good use out of your current pond by doing some remedial work only. Then clean it out when the problems present themselves as to no longer workable.

My best suggestion, if you have the area available, is to do some minor work on the current pond using aeration and some elbow grease while building a new pond instead of sinking the cost of draining and excavating the current one. You have decent depth and a foot or 18" of muck is really not that bad.

You can try dredging out the muck with a trash pump, but my guess is you will tire quickly of the amount of work it will be. If you try it, by all means let us know how it worked out. The aeration should eventually help with the muck reduction if you have enough water turnover, but it will not be instant gratification. Probably will take a few years.

Just my non-expert opinion.

I like A and B options! Option C might come into play after the re-working. My guess is that your "stocking" from someone "just" wanting to sell fish, was little more than fish food for the starving bullheads. Those bullheads are most likely also the cause for such low clarity in the pond due to their constant muck rooting looking for food.

If you want to drain the pond, don't worry about bacteria for the sludge. Best method would be to get a back, or track hoe to breach the dam and keep it drained. It sounds like you would like a larger pond, and it will be less expensive to push the old muck out to be used as filler on the back side of an entirely new, cored and WELL compacted dam. This will gain you volume and a little more depth if wanted in areas at the lowest price/least equipment hours.

What should you be googling?!?!?! Nothing! Stay here and brainstorm on PondBoss! lol Take pictures too!

Trees on dam:

General rule of thumb is 6" and less diameter cut down, treat stumps so they won't re-grow. Larger than 6" diameter leave and pray that they don't die so the roots stay alive. Dead decaying roots leave pathways for water to go thru the dam.

First off you guys are awesome....

You have given me tons to think about. Here is a google earth location but the picture is before i made the pond a little bigger. 41* 11.2780N 93* 52.2729W

I don't live on the land but go there as much as I can. I'll make some measurements next time I'm down there.

For now I am going to remove any small trees from the dam. And clear out the brush and trashy plants from around the pond.

I found some pictures on my phone thought I'd share.

This one was a few days after we made the pond a bit bigger. Looking towards the dam.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d164/DOA_2/imagejpg2.jpg

This one was this spring. Standing on the dam looking west.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d164/DOA_2/imagejpg1.jpg

This was also this spring. Standing on dam looking north.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d164/DOA_2/imagejpg1.jpg

Thanks again for your time...

I renovated my son's old pond where the dam had been breeched and had three or four feet of muck and basically completely dried up during a drought.

It was completely amazing the transformation. Your pond looks like you have a decent BOW to work with. Sons pond was a complete nothing. But the point I'm trying to make is, clearing out selective trees around the area completely transformed it. It does not even seem like the same place. Because of a very dry winter and spring it is only about 2/3 full and has not made it to full pool yet. Yet the family has been swimming, boating (Jon boat kids paddle around in) and the kids kayaking in it several times already this spring. They are going to get LOTS of use out of the pond that before was nothing more than an eyesore and weedy and brushy mess.

I think you will be amazed at the transformation once you get some clearing and a little maintenance done. Best of luck in your efforts.

Here is a link to what I did with son's old pond. I need to update with new pictures as he is building a dock and we are planning on building a bridge across one portion in a few weeks.

Son's refurbished pond

Just got back from the pond. My son was assigned the job of fishing. He caught 20 catfish in less than hour. 19 Bullhead and 1 Channel cat. They ranged from 4 inches to 6 inches. Basically there must be a lot of them in there. I looked for a trap locally but found none. Any thoughts on a good one I can order in.

While my son was fishing I started clearing the junk from the banks. What are the chances of me adding clay to both sides of the dam helping?

Thanks

During a light sprinkle rain yesterday I caught several 4-5" bullheads by hook and line. Everything was biting for about 30 minutes. So it looks like I may have caught some of the larger ones in the trap, but the smaller ones probably are too small and find their way back out. I may try to reduce the opening size of the trap because I think the mesh size is small enough to keep them in.

I bought my trap at Acadamy Sports. They had a couple different styles. The one I have is rectangular with openings in each end for the fish to enter and a bait container in the center. I can't tell you if it is a good trap or not, because other than a minnow trap it is the only fish trap I have ever used. I've caught several fish in it though.

This might work:

http://www.catfish1.com/forums/showthread.php?38891-A-Bream-Trap-You-Can-Build-Yourself

As far as adding clay to both sides of the dam helping, yes I think it could if you have it readily available and the equipment to do the job.

I put some of the excess dirt and clay I cleaned out of the ponds I refurbished on the back side of the dam. Two of the three dams had a lot of trees on them. Many older ponds around here had steep dams where the back side of the dam was too steep to mow and maintain. I used the excess material removed from the pond to fill in the back side and make a nice slope so it is easily mowed. BUT...... the two ponds I did this on have not filled all the way yet. So I can't say for sure my efforts are a complete success. Waiting on enough rain to get some runoff to fill the ponds.

But I see no reason if you can add a compacted layer of clay on a dam surface how it would be any different than putting a clay liner in the bottom of a pond. The inner surface would be better, but enough on the back side would be no different than adding a complete new dam on the back side of the old dam. How thick would the clay need to be? Don't know. But thicker would be better and sealing the back side would take a thicker layer than sealing the front side, in my non-expert opinion. The front side would only require a sealing layer with the existing dam providing the structural strength. Sealing the back side would require the layer of clay to stand up to whatever hydraulic pressure was being applied through the dam from the water height so would not only require sealing ability but structural strength.

Like snrub said, for sealing, the clay needs to be very well compacted and on the front side to seal. The water pressure, though not high, will push against the seal and the weigh of the rest of the Dam provides a solid structure. On the back side, the water would simply go through the Dam soils, lift the clay, and run under it, or find a weak spot and push through. Since the clay needs to be/remain slightly moist and elastic to seal, it must have a solid structure behind to support it.

Rainman made me think about what I said about sealing the back side of the dam. He makes good points. You could seal from the back side, but essentially you would need to basically create nearly a whole new dam. One with enough physical structure that it could hold the water pressure and seal all the way down as far as needed.

In most cases this would not be practical, but in certain situations it could be. For example, I just dug a sediment pond ahead of my main pond. It was a complete "dug" pond so everything that came out of it became a big pile of excavation material. Since I was near the top of the hill and we have a clay pan soil, it is nearly all clay. Had I needed clay for some purpose, I have nearly a quarter acre of it 7'+ deep.

So if you happen to have a place you need a hole dug and the hole happens to have plentiful clay, fixing a dam from the back side "could" be done, but in most cases will not be the best route for the amount of material to be moved. It is one of those situations that happens so very often on PBF, "it all depends". Lots of things can be done in certain situations that may not apply to "most" situations, and getting someone who knows what they are doing with ponds and working with soils and construction equipment for your particular situation is the best route.

My old pond that I refurbished had enough clay from the new addition portion of the excavation that I basically built a complete new dam on the back side of the old breeched, skinny one. It has held..........so far. Now I have a nice, wide, gently sloping dam that is easy to mow. It was fixed in the breech area and then the back side, but the back side has enough material to have made a complete new additional skinny dam.

As far as simply putting a patch or plug from the back side of the dam, it likely would not work for reasons Rainman stated. It would take a lot more in the way of material to do the job from the back side than from the front side.

I'll make one or two of those traps. Not sure mine will look that nice though.

A neighbor offered to pull some larger Big Mouth Bass from one of his ponds and put them in mine. Is that a good idea?

Last fall when I dug my pond bigger I piled a large mound of dirt and clay near the pond. My thought is to put that pile on the back side of the dam. Next year or so when I build the sediment pond and dig out the old pond I'm planning to use that material on the front side

And for my fun project this year I'm going to build my ducks a floating house.

I believe I would pass on the larger bass. They will probably throw a monkey wrench into the whole works when they eat the fish that you need for breeding.

You might regret stocking the crappie.

Hey DD I agree he is doing some things backwards and really putting himself farther back, but haven't we all?

Paddle,

1. I would not put the LMB in there either. Your already stocked wrong so don't do the LMB.

2. Even though they are Black Crappie they should not have gone into a pond as small as yours. They just take over very quick! And they compete for forage food. Read on here about Crappie.

3. I think you need to drain the pond and kill everything off. Sorry but your never gonna get all them CC or Bull heads out of there. If the other fish you put in there were smaller most of them are more than likely gone anyway and became food.

There is all kinds of info on here about draining your pond and starting over you may want to read about it also.

Here is the one thing I can tell you. Before you do anything else ask!! Or read out hear first and it may very well keep you from spending a lot of time and work on something you may not should have done in the first place!

Good Luck bud keep us posted,

RC

I have already decided I will have to drain the pond to fix the dam. It's going to have to be later after I build the sediment pond. I'll tell my neighbor to hold off on putting Bass in though.

I do wish I could find something to do with all the Bullheads. Last batch we caught got buried.

Thanks and it is clear this forum is an extremely valuable resource. For instance I have an well at the other end of the property and am thinking I might start pumping water from that down the pond at some point. The well looks hand dug and has rocks along the side. I built a small shed over it right after I bought the property so nothing would fall in it. I'll have to take some pictures of it later.

Yeah that's cool just get some sort of water test kit to check it first for basic stuff to make sure it's fit for fish!

Keep this in mind paddle if you going to drain it soon say in a year or so you can do what you want if your going to drain and kill it off. So if you want some LMB in there to kill of some of the bullheads then do it if your dead set on draining and killing it off at some point in the near future. Now is your time to expierment if your going to break it all down in the next year. But if you going to leave it alone for a while I would try to come up with a better plan of action for stocking.

Good Luck it looks like a nice pond and something to work with!!

RC

Natures clean up crew will help somewhat with the fish.

You might want to drain your pond sooner than later.. trying to get into a pond that is filled with muck in a bulldozer is not fun you want it to dry out good before you pull any equipment into it..

Thats a good point too! I have been told that pond muck can take a year to dry out it may look cracked and dry on the surface but still a mess under it. The dryer the better when it comes to cleaning it out!

RC

You got a ton of options man, is your head spinning yet?

"I do wish I could find something to do with all the Bullheads. Last batch we caught got buried."

My wife cleaned a mess yesterday, most of them only 8" long. Filleted them out. I would not have, but hey, she took it on herself. Got about a pound of meat. She is pretty good with a knife as our TV is always on some cooking channel and she is a great cook.

We did start catching more small ones by hook and line and when I closed up the size of the opening in our trap and caught one small one in the trap last night. Bullhead guts and remains are a fine bait for the trap, by the way.

Last time I ate any Bullheads I was probably too young to remember it. But I know my mom would have cooked some in my lifetime. We will see how they are. They looked in great shape. They should be........been eating my fish pellets.

Probably an exercise in futility, but it keeps us occupied and we have a main pond that has no bullheads, so this pond is kind of just an experimental pond for us and me to play with and try things.

I don't expect to get them all, but if we can reduce the number that spawn later this summer, the other fish might be able to get the upper hand on them and they become a minor fish.