Hi all,
I'm looking for ideas/advice on how to create a swimming area in an existing pond.

The pond was on the property when I bought the home, it's fed by a natural spring and it also has springs that come up from the bottom of the pond. It's shallow at the end being fed, and gets deeper on the other end that has a drain. The pond is also surrounded by large pine trees, and has a lot of small mouth bass in it. We have no issue with the water, water is crystal clear all the way down to the bottom. We have lots of plants that grow up during the summer because it's so clear.

The pond has a lot of muck in it, especially at the shallow end which is where i'd like to make a small swimming area. I've read a few different posts here about removing the muck before laying anything down, or even just dumping sand/stone on top of the muck.

I plan on investing on a pond aerator to help prevent this going forward, but what should I do about the existing muck? Should I remove it? Or just dump tons and tons of sand/stone on top of it?

Any advice is appreciated!

Does the pond continually overflow due to water coming in from the springs?

The pond rarely overflows, if anything, it's typically lower than the actual bank of the pond by a few inches. I say rarely, because it did overflow last year when we got 15 inches of rain in a 2 hour period!

The natural spring starts up in the middle of my yard and travels about 50 yards underground until it enters the pond. I'd say it's 2 times the water amount compared to when you turn on an outside water hose. I'd say there's probably 5-6 springs on the bottom of the pond, near the side that drains that are about the size of a nickel in diameter that water flows in.

Not continually overflowing suggests the springs are not high flow and basin seepage/leaks absorbs most of the spring water inflow. The best possible option for creating a low muck good quality swimming area is to drain/pump the pond down about 5-7ft. Then get a pond building contractor to come in and with an excavator or wide backhoe bucket and dip out the swimming area and relay either sand or pea gravel. Then allow the pond to refill. If the sprigs are too 'strong' dewatering may not be a good option. The contractor should be able to provide advice for the project. Other areas can also be dipped and shoreline slope steepened if the water will stay at a lower level for several weeks in August.

Trying to remove muck naturally will take a lot of time and the end result will be fair at best for creating a decent swimming area.

I agree with Bill. If you just drop gravel or sand over the muck, it won't take tons, it'll take tens of tons, and there still isn't any guarantee that the lighter muck won't rise to the top of the heavier material.

In a local lake that has a muck bottom, there is enough disturbance (read that as people swimming) that they keep the muck stirred up and away from that area. That area has a sand bottom, and is about 24" deeper than where the people don't swim. In the Spring, there is a 2"-4" layer of muck on top of the sand, but after a month of use, it's back to sand again.

I appreciate the advise, and was what I was thinking would need to be done but wanted to see if there was a lazy option!

As far as draining the pond, that is best done just by renting a water pump and pumping it out?

How deep should I dig to remove the muck? Should I hit a "solid" bottom like clay or stone and then stop there?

I do plan on doing as much of this work myself, including the digging with the backhoe since I own a tractor already.

sounds like a beautiful pond...please post a pic or 2

If you are doing the work yourself then you will have to rent a trash pump and hoses. A 3" pump is probably the best option for your smaller pond. Once you get it pumped down you will then get a good idea of how fast it refills from the spring activity. You may have to pump it out several times to stay ahead of the inflow. A small tractor may have difficulty adequately removing sloppy muck if it doesn't have time to first dry out. Try to scrape and scoop out slop until the bucket scrapes firm bottom. IF the water won't stay down or low you may have to hire a contractor to do the job quickly and efficiently to stay ahead of rising water level.

Jay, does water continually drain through the drainpipe, or does it only drain out of the drainpipe on occasion? I am a little confused. Also, pictures are work 1246 words.

Sure, here's 2 pics of my pond - one from either side.

I may give it a try myself, maybe i'll start by hand with a shovel just to see how deep the muck actually is. I know when I step in it at the one end, I sink a good 2 feet until I hit solid ground.

Sounds like it would be a multiple person job, to make it easier....depending on how quickly it fills back up.

It continually drains, water continually comes in at one end and out the other. Sorry about the lack of pictures, I don't have any better ones on my phone at the moment or I'd take close ups.

Where I put the black arrow is where water comes in.

You can see that the water all travels unground in a pipe, and lets out into the pond.

When I get home, I can get better pictures that will explain a little better than words!

Do you hava an idea about how many gallons per minute flow out of the pond?

Using the outflow water will make sucking up and removing muck much easier if you are willing to use the flow as a vacuum.

What is down stream from your pond?

Continually draining is overflowing out a pipe or spillway either way it is overflowing. This indicates that a temporary draw down without continual or frequent pumping will be tricky if not difficult due to it constantly filling back up. This will make it harder to get the job done if one takes their time. Working with these conditions may take a professional operator with larger equipment.

Just a guess at this point, but I'd say less than a gallon per minute. The water flows out of the one end, drops down into a small creek which feeds a larger creek about 200 yards away.

That's why I was thinking this would be a multi person job if I were to take it on myself.

I'm just not sure if I want to sink thousands of dollars into this for a contractor to do it. I mean the water doesn't have a "pond" smell to it, the only negative thing is you can't stand cause of the muck. You just have to float!

Jay,
Are you willing to buy or rent a trash pump? and can you pump that discharge water to the larger stream without offending anyone? If you want to get rid of the muck more naturally, you might want to look into aeration. Either way, the nutrients will need to go down stream sooner or later.

Definitely willing to rent one, they are less than $300 for the week. I'm assuming I'd need 2-3 days to get the muck removed from one end.

We don't have any neighbors, so we could dump that water into the same spot where the water overflows.

I was already considering aeration installation, to help keep the muck out when we go thru all this work to get the muck removed in the first place. I've read that an aerator would take years to remove muck from the bottom unless you introduced bacteria or something to help it along.

Attached are some more pictures show how the pond gets water, and where it leaves.

Main flow 1 is a pic of what we refer to as a spring. It's a spot where 3-4 natural springs empty into. It collects in a drain and flows in an underground pipe that empties out at pic Main Flow 2.

Main Empty 1 is the drain pipe, and Main Empty 2 is the other end that just dumps into a small creek.

Now we haven't had a good rain here in maybe 3 weeks now, and it's been 90-100 for what seems like forever now....so the water flow is kind of low right now.

During lowest flow is when you want to be doing this project.

Just a thought....

Before you rent the trash pump, buy enough pipe/hose to re-route the water that is coming into the pond to go around the pond. Then all you'd have to deal with is what seeps into the pond from underground.

To measure the muck, take a 5 gallon bucket lid. Attach it to a pole (rigid electric conduit works) and push it into the pond bottom. Mark where it stops. Remove the bucket lid, or use another piece of conduit and shove that into the pond bottom. Mark where it stops. The difference between the 2 marks is the depth of the muck.

If you get the trash pump, you could make a venturi suction system like this Muck is relatively light and could possibly be sucked out of the pond.

But, have a plan in place where to put the muck that you remove. I think a pump and excavator would be the quickest route, although probably not the cheapest. Careful with the tractor, they get stuck easier than they get unstuck.....

One other question before I being planning..

Will the fish be OK in the pond while I do this? I imagine the water that still remains in the pond will be cloudy/muddy as we are digging up all this muck. I was reading on another post that if the water gets stirred up too much I could have a couple of floaters.

Appreciate all the feedback, really helps!

IF, and a big IF you get the water low enough and allow the exposed bottom and muck to dewater and dry out 1-3 wks so it is not slop, the digging activity should not result in making the water muddy. Several days of drying time in hot sun will make a big difference on sediment consistancy. It will all depend on if you are using the bucket in the water or on pond bottom that has dried out some.

Fish and depending on the species will generally tolerate quite a bit of suspended sediment. What tends to stress them most is the hydrogen sulfide gas from black sediments getting into the water column. Hydrogen sulfide is toxic at low concentrations to fish. H2S + suspended silt is extra stressfull.