hi i am new to this site, i have a small pond in my back yard around 50x100 it is around 25 - 30 years old. it is spring feed, i have lots of trees in my back yard so i get lots of leaves in the pond every year. I drained the pond down around 7 feet or so my buddy used a backhoe to clean the edges out to as far as he could reach. we only went down around 1' or so befor we hit sand. all of the muck was put on the bank around the pond. it sat for about 3 weeks with not much rain the layer of muck was around 10' wind and almost 1' deep. after 3 weeks the pond has filed back up and the water looks very clean. My questions are after i tried spreading the muck in my yard some spots were still very wet and my samll tractor would not pull a rake throw it with out ne getting stuck. SO how long will it take to dry out. i have it spread out prety eaven. if i just let it go will it harden? or should i keep trying to thin it out. Also i was unable to get the center part of the pond clean. i took a pvc pipe and could push down around 6 to 8" in the middle befor i hit sold ground. Trying to find the best way to get that clean. in the summer my pond stays pretty clear. i dont have any grass that grows in it. thanks for you info. also i live in delaware if that makes any diference as to the muck and weather. thanks again.

Welcome to the Pond Boss forum dwayne... Someone with more knowledge in this area will be along shortly!

Hello, dwayne.

The best answer I can give myself is "A long time."

Otto may have the most muck experience of anyone here; he says that muck 18" thick won't ever dry (and that's in Texas). So 12" thick would take a while, I am afraid.

P.S. Otto usually posts incredibly early in the morning. Hopefully he will see this tomorrow or the next day. Not that someone else won't have a much better idea than I do as well.

IIRC Otto says 18 mths of dry before you can take equipment out on the stuff and then carefully.

Dwayne,

If you've already gotten some of the muck out of the pond, it will dry in a reasonable period of time, but it may be June before you can really work with it. The more you can spread it, the faster it will dry. It will get crusty, but it should let the grass below really thrive and come through the top.

I've been through what you are experiencing, except I cut a hole through the dam, so the pond didn't fill back up while we were working. It still took over a year before I could try to get the tractor anywhere near it. The muck we pulled out, before we opened the dam, dried enough to spread on the lawn in just a few months.

I just wish I'd have taken a picture of my tractor, sunk down to its belly in the muck, six months after we drained the pond.

i want to plant grass around my pond. do i need to put any lime down on the muck. my goal is to try and spread it out to be around 2,3" thick.

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daywne 19901
Welcome to the forum. This is the best place on the web.
catmadoo is sure right it will dry faster if you move it around and let the sun and wind get to it. Keep working with muck and it will be the way you want it before you know it.

The muck that is in the middle may have to stay there until you get a dry spell.

dwayne get some soil samples from the pond bottom and have them tested. Your local Co-Op Ext service can help and it is not expensive (around $20). That test will tell you if you need lime and how much. Ag lime will help dry out the dirt but you may not need any.


See this link for Deleware

http://ag.udel.edu/other_websites/DSTP/general_information.htm

University of Delaware Soil Testing Program
152 Townsend Hall

531 S. College Avenue

Newark, DE 19717-1303
(302) 831-1392

Hours: 8:00 am - 4:30pm M-F

You can get your soil tested for $7.50 from http://www.mossyoakbiologic.com/content.asp?ID=565§ion=none I use them all the time and they do a great job.

Dwayne,welcome aboard.You will get lots of great advice hear,just be sure to take some of it with a grain of salt.That said,if your in a hurry to get this done,dynamyte will spread and dry the muck at the same time,but it does have noise issues.

thanks for all the help

This post is exactly what I am looking for. I hope there are still people interested in this!

I am working on rehabbing a 1 acre pond and we've removed all the water that we could (still about 6" deep in a small area) and are left with a huge amount of muck, sloping to the bottom, ranging from 4" to 48" of very wet muck at the very bottom. After 3 weeks of dry time in 70 deg. weather, only a thin amount at the edge of the muck has dried out to accept body weight. Our goal is to remove all the muck and install a new liner. (pic below)

I need to speed up the drying process and I'm considering installing a sump pump in an 18" dia perf pipe wrapped in filter fabric. Does anyone have any experience doing something like this?

Or are there any better ideas out there? We have access to heavy equipment but from reading the above posts, it doesn't seem like this will be helpful for some time.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Welcome to the forum!

I think that as long as it's in a hole in the ground, you'll never get it dry. It'll dry if you dig it out (excavator) and pile it, or spread it out on the ground.

If it's in a hole, moisture will continually seep into the hole, and rainwater will collect. If it's piled, the water can drain out of it.

Luckily, we won't have much of any moisture heading into our "hole" for the rest of our dry summer season. I'm wondering if a sump pump would pull a significant amount of water out?

It might if you could keep the muck from clogging up the drain tile, and the pump.