WE HAVE A SMALL POND ON THE 1 1/2 ACRE PROPERTY...MAYBE IT IS 1/8 ACRE POND. I BELIEVE IT WAS DUG AND STOCKED PROPERLY...THE MAN PASSED AWAY WHO DUG THE POND...BUT I KNOW THESE THINGS...
WE HAVE HEAVY CLAY SOIL
HIS WIFE LEFT HIS POND MANAGEMENT BOOKS WITH THE HOUSE
IT ORIGANALLY WAS STOCKED WITH CHANNEL BLUEGILL AND BASS
THERE WERE AROUND 10 CATFISH
THE POND STARTED LEAKING SO WE ATE THE CATFISH THEY WERE GOOD
THE PREVIOUS OWNERS SON SAYS THAT HE THINKS HIS DAD LEFT AN OLD STUMP WHICH ROTTED IN THE DAM
WE STILL HAVE BLUE GILL AND 2 GRASS CARP(NESSIE AND FESSIE)
WE USE WELL WATER...IT IS ABOUT 5 FEET LOW ON DEEP END
MY DAD IS 86 AND WAS IN OIL BUSINESS ALL HIS LIFE HE SAYS USE BENTONITE
WE HAVE TOO MANY CATTAILS AND WATER LILIES.
I KNOW THATS ALOT OF INFO AND NOT ENOUGH...SOMEONE KNOW ANYONE CLOSE TO ME WHO MIGHT TELL ME EHOW TO FIX MY POND SO I CAN RAISE A FEW FISH FOR MY HUSBAND AND I TO CATCH AND EAT AND ENJOY.
miss nancy
Fingerling
Registered: December 28, 2008
Posts: 1
Loc: oklahoma county
I AM NEW TO THIS WEB SITE...I LIVE IN EDMOND OKLAHOMA AND HAVE A SMALL POND. I BOUGHT THE PROPERTY 12 YEARS AGO...IT HAS A SMALL..MAYBE 1/8 OF AN ACRE POND. INSTEAD OF GOING INTO DETAIL I NEED TO KNOW HOW TO GET THIS POND BACK TO WHERE IT WAS AND I WANT TO FARM A FEW FISH...WHERE DO I START? POSTING PICTURES? POND INFO ETC...I AM EXCITED ...I NOTICED YOU ARE HOOKED ON THIS SITE SO I AM SENDING THIS TO YOU..I LIKED THE PINK HAT
Hello Miss Nancy and welcome to Pond Boss. Hold on for some expert opinions.
Howdy, Nancy.
What do you think all of the ponds problems are, in your priority? Leakage, possibly from a void left by a rotting stump would be first on my list, but what else has your concern?
Bentonite is indeed darn good stuff for stopping leaks through poor, seeping soil. I'm don't think it's the nest choice for a major void in a dam, however - that sounds like a dam repair job for excavating equipment - lower the water, remove the stumphole area, and repack that area with some of your good clay. That might be a good time to remove excess cattails from the shoreline as well.
Tell us what you know about the current state fish in the pond - species (anything in there besides the advertised BG, LMB, & CC?), sizes, numbers - and what kinds of fish you would like to emphasize on growing.
P.S. My Grass Carp have names, too (Jimmie, Rosalyn, Amy, Billie, Miss Lillian, Pat, and Dick)
P.P.S. Everyone likes the pink hat.
Welcome to the forum. You are going to love this place.
When you say it is leaking. Can you see on the back side of the dam where the water is comming out. That will tell us a little more.
THANKS FOR REPLY. HERE IS WHAT HAPPENS. IF THE POND FILLS UP IT BEGINS LOSING WATER UNTIL IT REACHES A CERTAIN LEVEL...I DISCOVERED THAT IT WAS LEAKING FROM THE BACKSIDE OF THE DAM BUT IT APPEARED TO BE COMING UP FROM THE GROUND NOT THROUGH THE DAM ITSELF. SO I SHOVELED AND WHEEL BARROWED RED CLAY FROM A PILE LEFT FROM STORM SHELTER INSTALL AND PACKED THE GROUND...IT HAS KEPT THE LANE BEHIND THE DAM FROM BEING A SWAMP. I AM AFRAID TO LOOK IN THE NEIGBORS PROPERTY BECAUSE I KNOW THE WATER IS GOING SOMEWHERE...THE LEAK IS MY MAIN CONCERN. I WILL TAKE SOME PICTURES AND POST...I WILL HAVE TO FIGURE OUT PHOTO POSTING BUT I BET I CAN. I DO NOT HAVE ALOT OF MONEY SO I WOULD LIKE TO DEAL WITH LILIES AND CATTAILS MYSELF...BUT DON'T KNOW HOW...I KNOW I HAVE MUCK AND COULD USE FOR GARDENS...PICTURES WILL HELP...I LIVE RIGHT SPANK IN THE MIDDLE OF EDMOND AND IT IS AN INTERESTING PIECE OF URBAN PROPERTY. I AM 56 SO I GUESS I BETTER DO THIS PHYSICAL LABOR WHILE I CAN.
I POSTED SOME MORE INFO AND WILL POST PICTURES FOR A START...THANKS...I THINK I WILL GET THE HANG OF THIS GREAT RESOURCE AND HOPE TO BE FISHING IN A YEAR OR SO. THE LEAK IS MY PRIORITY. THANKS
Hi Miss Nancy,Welcome aboard.Im sure you can find out everything you need to know here.Im not one of the experts but it sounds like a drawdown to see the damage,then putting clay back in the hole will resolve your problem.I was thinking someone with a backhoe could fix it pretty easily and at a minimum cost.Just an idea you might want to ck into.Good luck.
P.S. ...if it gets really to the point of drastic measures,I ALWAYS advise the use of dynamite,but,thats why Im not an expert.
Just kidding!
I TOOK PICTURES BUT CAN'T SEEM TO FIGURE HOW TO POST...IT IS TOO PRETTY HERE TO BE IN SIDE SO I WILL GO WORK ON MY ROCK SIDEWALK.
Hang on,somebody post the link for posting photos please.
Two things that you said make me wonder about your dam.
It draws down to a certain level, then stops. Does this mean that the water level remains constant a that level after dropping to that point? If so, mark that point on the dam in several places to create a line across the dam. Be sure to do this where the dam starts and ends.
You see the water or moisture coming up from the ground, not through the dam. Is the dam in a valley, or old creak bed? Is all the soil clay, or is there some rock in there too?
Do you have any trees growing on or behind the dam?
Do you have beavers or muskrats?
How big is the dam?
If the guy who built it had books on pond management and knew what clay is and what types of clay hold water, I find it very hard to believe that he left a stump in the dam. That is such a big no-no that it's just about impossible to comprehend.
Has the dam settled or moved? If there is a stump in there and it's decaying, then the dirt is going to settle into the void that the stump creates. Again, I'm having trouble believing that anybody would do something like this.
Have you done any probing along the waterline? Take a stick or metal rod, like a piece of rebar, and poke it along the waters edge. Most of it should be muddy, but then it firms up fairly quickly. You are looking for an area that is ALLOT softer then the rest of the dam.
How long has this been going on? How old is the pond?
Animals like to dig into dams under the water line for their homes. Trees like to send out roots to the water through a dam. If the tree dies, or is removed, the root will rot and allow water through that tunnel. If it's a recent leak, it could very well be caused by an animal that went a little too far in it's tunneling.
Where is the overflow for the pond? Does it have a pipe through it? Pipes are good places for leaks. Not just through the pipe, but along side the edge of it. If water is going over the top of the dam, it will erode the dam to the point of failure. Before this happens, you might get a leak. Sort of an early warning.
Depending on your resources, I think a competent backhoe operator should be able to dig out the part of the dam with the leak and repack it with clay. Since you mentioned cattails, you might want to have to dam taken out and clean out the pond. Dig it down some more and use that dirt to make a bigger, stronger dam. More work and money, but in the long term, maybe cheaper to just start over again and have it done right.
Good luck,
Eddie
I DO HAVE TREES ON BACKSIDE OF THE DAM AND HAVE HAD SOME WILLOWS DIE AND CUT DOWN. I DO THINK THE ROOTS ARE SUCKING UP WATER BECAUSE THE POND DOES NOT LOOSE AS MUCH WHEN TREES ARE DROMANT.
I CAN.T BELIEVE SOME ONE WOULD LEAVE A STUMP...BUT HIS SON SAID SO. THE WATER LEVEL DOES STABILIZE AT SOME POINT...NOMUSCRATS ECT BUT DEER SQUIRRELS HERONS AND OTHER NATIVE ANIMALS BEING DRIVEN IN BY DEVELOPERS. THERE IS AN OVERFLOW PIPE BUT HASN'T BEEN UP TO THAT LEVEL IN A LONG WHILE. THE POND WAS BUILT IN 1990...WHEN I BOUGHT THE PLACE THE POND WAS FULL...IT HAS BEEN NEGLECTED FOR SEVERAL YEARS AND I AM ABOUT TO GIVE UP...THE SIDES OF THE POND ARE STEEP THE DEEP END WHEN FULL IS ABOUT 9FT AND SHALLOW ABOUT 4FT...BUT NOW I HAVE MUCK...I WILL TRY TO POST MY PICTURES...I AM WONFERING IG THE LEAK IS NOT IN THE BOTTOM BUT ACTUALLY IN BACK OF DAM.
I KNOW I WAS SUPPOSED TO MAKE PICTURES SMALLER BUT I WAS SO PROUD TO GET THESE ON AND I KNOW THAT I COULD SHOW ALL IN ONE REPLY...BUT WHEN I RETIRED I REFUSED TO GET A COMPUTER THAT WAS YEARS AGO...I WAS TIRED OF BEING ON ONE SO MUCH...WELL THIS IS NOW ALL KIND OF NEW TO ME SINCE I GOT MY LAPTOP FOR XMAS SO BE PATIENT...I PROMISE I WON'T BE ADDING MORE PICTURES FOR NOW BUT WILL ANSWER QUESTIONS SO I CAN GET MY ANSWERS
The pictures are great you did a good job.
The Pond looks beautiful.
It looks like the water level has not been much higher that it is now, at least for a while.
Have you beed behind the dam when the water seeping out?
Is it more than what comes out of a garden hose?
Because of the water leak I have let it get low so I could do some cleaning...as you notice the banks are steep and the pond was full for a about 5 of the last 12 years...the white pipe in the middle was there when i bought this place and a hose went through and it was kind of like a fountain...there is a barrel in the pond for the fish and some brush...i know this seems like a small endeavor to most of you...but its like anything else...if you know how to do something it is easy...if not it is hard...I wonder if there are any funding opportunities through gov urban ag programs for pond repair...I do know how to write proposals...I will check. Do you know any oklahoma pond diggers?
Also when i found it leaking it appeared in the lane behind the dam and it was more like seeping up from the ground...it doesn't leak at the level it is at now...should I fill it up and pay more attention or wait till pring rains?
Dont give up,and visit often.I think your pics look great.I enjoy reading all the posts here and have learned a lot on this site.Unfortunatly Im not able to help too many people as I probably fit in the Class clown section,not with the experts.Sigh.Such is life,but its o.k.,cause they let me stay and play anyway
Thanks for posting your pictures. I was expecting something like what you have from your description. The steepness of the dam will make it difficult to work on, but it's small enough that you probably wont' have to do much. Are you physically capable of climbing around on the dam and looking for the leak? It might not be visible, but if you can find a hole of some kind, that would be a huge help if fixing it.
With all those trees on it, roots are a good first guess for the leak. After that, it's either an animal, rot or loose soil.
All of which can be fixed with a backhoe or excavator. I would think a backhoe would be the least expensive way to go. They are easily transported and plenty big enough to dig up the bad areas and repack them.
The trick is to find somebody who knows what he's doing and stands behind his work. For this, you need to check references. Never hire the first person that you talk to, and always listen to that little voice of doubt when interviewing people.
It's probably a thousand dollar repair to do it right. The trees should probably go and then the shoreline needs to be dug up, then repacked. Two guys with a backhoe should be able to do it in a full day pretty easily.
I wouldn't expect any government assistance. They are on pretty tight budgets and your pond is pretty small. No agriculture value to them. Unless you can come up with a reason that it benefits allot of others, or is somehow needed for safety, you're more then likely wasting your time looking for financial assistance.
Eddie
Eddie
I just came in from climbing down into the shallow end of the pond...I thought I could at least clean up the plant material that has grown up right under the deck where we used to fish so there wouldn't be anything to catch our lines on....should I just cut the small shrubs down or dig them out? I am able to do quite a bit of physical labor...but to get into the deep end I will need waders and anither person to make sure I don't fall in or get stuck in the muck...I think I know approximately where the leak is so I will go look for holes etc...there really very few trees on the front part of the dam but most are on backside...one is a huge cottonwood that I hate...edmond has an urban forrestry program and used to have a program where they woule remove cottonwoods...I will check...I also found tha Langston university has a pond management program and a fish farming program...they may be a good resource for backhoe person.
I just posted 2 photos...one is of the lane behind the dam...the other is of a hole I found on backside of dam...the hole seems to be about a foot wide and about 2 feet deep with other channels going in different directions from bottom of hole...there is a piece of corragated metal buried behind the hole..not sure how deep the metal goes...what does everone think i should do with this discovery...the leak did not bubble from the hole but seemed to come up from the ground...interesting...POND HOLE IN MISS NANCY'S DAM...it would be nice if this is the problem...let me know what to do with this fine looking dam hole
Bump for ya. Hang on Miss Nancy, I'm sure one of the experts will take a look at that for you. Since it's the holidays probably most of the pond experts are off gallivanting around instead of minding the company store. It's just so hard to get good help these days.
I'm at a loss as to why that metal panel would be in the ground like that, unless it was use as some sort of device to try to stop a leak. Maybe somebody else has a better idea, but it really doesn't make any sense to me why it would be there other then a leak.
Is there pipe behind or under it? From the picture, it looks like water has been coming out from the bottom of the hole. Is this the case? Have you seen water in there, or coming from there?
If it was me, I'd remove it and find what's going on in there. If it's not your problem, it is something that needs to be addressed.
Good luck,
Eddie
It almost looks like a piece of trash that just got covered up with time.
I think Eddie has the right idea pull it up and see what is going on. You are going to work on it at some point so you might as well know what needs to be done.
There are a few equipment dealers in ok city that migh also be able to give you the name of some backhoe people.
Somebody here recently talked about a critter that bores into dams, then cuts off in different directions as it tunnels (beaver....?)
Maybe the metal panel was someone's feeble attempt to stop a boring critter when they found that hole. And, furthermore, if that is the CSI cold case hypothesis, would it not lead to an explanation for the leaking pond.
...or not
Never seen one, but people talk about the Nutria as something that might do that. Brettski might have something there, maybe the metal was to stop it from digging anymore.
Armadillo?
Muskrat?
Beaver?
Woodchuck?
Ground Squirrel?
Prairie Dog?
Rabbits?
Badger?
Not sure what else digs a home into the dirt. Might need to find out what animals are in the area.
Eddie
HI POND GUYS...WELL I PUT A HOSE IN THE DAM HOLE AND IT HAS BEEN RUNNING FOR ABOUT HALF AN HOUR...HASN'T FILLED UP AND AM WATCHING TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS...HOPE I AM NOT DOING HARM...BUT NO CRITTERS HAVE COME OUT AND I JUST WONDER WHERE THE WATER IS GOING...IF I AM DOING SOMETHING STUPID LET ME KNOW
Sounds like a good idea. I am very curious where the water is going. I was also wondering if Otto had it right, and it was just garbage that somehow got tilted upright over the years. I keep looking at the picture of it, and I'm not sure, but lean towards it being placed there for a purpose.
I'd be looking really hard on the dam at the water level stays when it's not leaking. There might be a tunnel or hole that is partially blocked. With one on the other side of the dam and the fact that you have a leak makes me think there could very well be another hole of some king that you haven't found yet.
Good luck, I love a good mystery.
Eddie
miss nancy
If you can dig a hole behind the dam in the lowest place possible and see if there is any water running under ground.
What ever you find it appears that the you are going to have to use heavy equipment to fix this...
In the past I have filled holes with bags of sac-creet. Just guessing but this may be to big for that.
Otto
I have resolved myself to the fact I will need heavy equipment to fix this pond....so here is my current plan....I am going to clean up around the dam as much as possible...I am going to contact the son of the man who dug the pond and see what he can tell me...after spring rains i will watch...my big concern now are the trees actually on the back side of pond... there are some big and small...I am not sure how to deal with them...I know they must suck water when not dormant...by the way I found out that the son collects and repairs antique heavy equipment...he will know more about this pond than I do...in the mean time I will contine to work on this...I am able to cut smaller trees by myself...I will let the herons eat all they want while it is so low...they can't get in it when full as the sides are steep...I let the hose run for an hour and it never came up in the hole..
Yesterday I had three deer grazing...two ducks swimming ..two hawks hunting and a great heron fishing. it is ver interesting to have this environment less than two miles from I35 and 1 mile from the mother road(rt66). What to do with trees? I know it is all about the pond not the fish. What is sac-creet?
AH HA! A question I can answer. Sakrete is a brand name of premixed concrete. It all ready contains cement, rock, and sand. Just add water and wala, you have concrete. Actually, the Sakrete company makes all kinds of mixes but most people think of concrete mix when they say the same.
Sakrete's website
...don't forget to finely chop the walla
Hi,
Thanks very much for this comment. It help me to think about my ideals.
Tks again and pls keep posting.
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Backhoe operator job description Best regards.
