I am considering a 1/4 pond and was wondering if it is possible to support the water level with a well. I am located in central Kansas. Thanks!

smhog,

The answer depends on additional data...what is the average depth of your pond? and what is the capacity of the well?

Some numbers...an acre foot (one acre of water an average of 1 foot deep) is about 326k gallons of water...an inch of water in a one acre pond is about 27k gallons. Lets assume you have a 1/4 acre pond with an average depth of 4 feet. It would require app 326000 gallons of water to fill. Calculate your well's flow rate and you can then determine how long it will take to fill the pond. In addition, make an assumption regarding evaporation and then you can calculate what it will take to maintain the water level, in the absence of other factors such as rain water.

The average depth will be around 4-6 foot. The well driller said I should get 25-30gpm. Thanks for the info, I will do some figuring!

I have another question. I have lots of clay in my soil, my question is what can I put in the pond to keep the water clear? Thanks

You should reference this thread as one possible option.

http://www.pondboss.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=20;t=001127

smhog,

Another option would be to get a soil and water test from your local county agent and tell them that you are raising fish. They will then recommend the amount of ag. lime needed for that purpose. Depending on the results, and in a 1/4 acre pond, you can probably handle the task yourself by purchasing 50 pound bags of ag. lime and spreading it around and in the pond....assuming we are talking about 20 to at most 40 bags of the lime. In about three weeks your water will clear and remain so for up to about 5 years, again assuming lime is needed.

This approach may not work for you depending on the chemical make-up of your soils. It works great in my area, but each place is different. The advantages of this approach is that it is very forgiving, meaning that you do not have to be a water chemist to get good results...but you do need a soil/water test first.

p.s. according to my rough math you would need about 9 days to fill the pond and in summer without rain, would need to run the water hose about 18 hours a week to maintain pond water level.

If you can get that kind of flow you should have no problem. I feed water from my well into my 1/3 acre pond and although we have been real dry this year I am only about 12 inches down. I can only get between 3-5,000 gallons a day real slow well but it seem to do ok.

Bob

Thank God I misread the thread title - at first glance I thought it said "Filling IN a pond."

I would have had bad dreams all night.

Meadowlark you said that one foot of water covering an acre was only 386,000 gallons. Are you sure? I hope that you are right because I want to dig a well to supplement my pond and if your numbers are correct it makes it possible.

James,

Correction...In the above, I said 1 acre foot was about 326k gallons. To calculate, an acre is 43560 sq. ft. or a square 208.7 feet per side.

If you use this link:

http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/waterops/Redesign/calculators/volcalchtm.htm

and put in 208.7 feet for each side and 1 foot deep (1 acre foot) press calculate gallons and presto...326k gallons. If you know your dimensions and average water depth, you can get a pretty good estimate of your water volume this way.

Meadowlark is correct, James. A cu ft of water contains 7.481 gallons.