So my 8.5 acre lake is running low again this year, seems like 2 of 3 years we are running drought conditions in my part of Texas...

My brother came up with the idea of a solar pump. After doing the math - its clear that no solar pump will draw enough water to fill the lake, however one model I looked at will supply about 33,000 gallon per day.

The idea is that over time the lake will fill with rain and then the solar system would keep up with evaporation and theoretically keep the lake full. It seems too good to likely be true...

Your thoughts?

Do a search for pan evaporation rates thru NOAA for your area.

In your pond, that pump will only contribute slightly less than 1/8" of water per day. No pond is perfectly sealed, so you have leakage in addition to evaporation loss.

1' of water that covers one acre = 325851 gallons.

Yes, I suspect my current surface area is about 1/2 of the full pool area...so perhaps I can hit a certain level at 33,000 per day. I recall we see about 1/4 inch of evap per day during the hot months.

Gator

Also consider the minerals you are going to add to your pond from the well water. It might change your chemistry more than you might like or it could be a big help.

I have a spring adding water to our pond system and it is a God send. Even during the hottest and driest parts of the summer I notice a great help. Even though it does not keep up with evaporation, it helps a lot. My ponds do not go down like my neighbor's ponds.

Brian - good point. My next door neighbor is the well inspector for our community water system. He says the water is beneficial for stock tanks. We have a lot of iron ore formations in the area.


He says most of the wells are drilled to the 150 foot range although there is "water everywhere at about 30 feet".

I think the big question is if we can get 100 GPM + with solar, then its a marginal deal during hot weather months. Right now we are going into the summer down 6 feet and the outlook for filling the pond is dim. If I could at least get to full pool in May of every year, summer evap vs pumping might keep us from drying up and killing all the fish.

Neighbor also says 1" per day during august is not uncommon. Yikes.

Dang Gator, been awhile. Still making BBQ sauce?

Gator - long time no hear. How have you been? I use the Gator B'BQ shake from time to time and think of you.

Howdy folks - yes, we are still rolling on the BBQ adventure. We are in about 250 retail locations including a few small chains in Texas; Central Market and Sprouts Farmers Market...but I still have my day job! Between the real job, the BBQ job and 3 boys - we are running pretty thin.

The lake could use some rain, the last 2 years have been dry in my part of Texas.

Lookin to supplement if it would make a dent in the water level. Looks like the best I can expect on a solar system is about 75 GPM running average 8 hours per day, I figured we need up to 200 GPM running 24 x 7 to keep up with evaporation during August. Not good numbers...

Sure hate to see her go dry, we have avoided that so far. Prayin for more runoff rains.

How you men doing?

Eric - send me your mailing address I want to send you a couple goodies from the new stuff.

Solar pumps aren't all that expensive. I would probably do it to produce 75 gpm.

Solar pumps might be cheap but the solar panels are not so cheap. I have my unit working on about 110 watts with two panels but one panel would work during the day light. I would dump about a gallon of Humic acids into the water to seal the pond just to keep it in the pond. If you are wanting to run a pump 24 hours then you better figure on two panels and a battery backup. Depending on where the water is coming from then you might want to consider a gas powered pump just to top it off every other day or so.

Loren, I've never heard of using humic acid to seal a pond. What does it do (i.e. how does it work), and what concentration do you have to use?