Hey All, I just stumbled upon your forum and trying to soak in as much as I can.

I've got 1/3 to 1/2 half acre pond that doesn't stay full in the summer. Long and short, I hired a contractor to rebuild it to 1-1.5 acres. It's a deep valley behind the dam and what appears to be a 1-2 acres of tree clearing. 10k yards are estimated for the new dam. We are figuring 20-25 feet deep.

1 month of work including stacking trees I am keeping, finish grading and an overflow drain. What are your thoughts on cost?

Thanks. I'll get some pictures up of what it looks like today.

Welcome to the club. That can vary so much. 1 month of work. How many workers? What kind of equipment did they use?

I'll find out soon enough. Starting Sunday. Equipment is a D3 or bigger, 300 Series trackhoe, big sheepsfoot. 2 guys maybe 3.

Hopefully bigger than a D3! That would take a long time to finish. A D6 was used to build mine and move approximately 20k yards. It took more than a month.

I am standing on the existing dam when the picture was taken. The trees on the opposite side (where the dock is) will all be gone. We want to be able to see the whole thing from the cabin porch.

What I can't decide on yet is what to do with the peninsula that will be carve out of the old dam. Natural stone bank or wood dock/decking?

Well, its been nearly over a month since construction began. We are just a couple days away from complete. I'm in charge of erosion control so seed and straw will be down today or tomorrow. I am guesstimating it will be between 1- 1.1 acres of surface water.

The corner on the dam/ cabin side is over 20ft deep. My intent is to stock with largemouth, blue gill and feeder fish only, but thinking about smallies?

I will add dock/ deck as well and still thinking about placement.

Ouch, pictures won't load. It says they are downloading but they are coming up blank. Sorry, we'll have to wait till the moderators can fix the glitch in the forum. Would love to see your pictures and try to answer your question...

Another question for you experts. I am fighting washout from runoff due to the rain we have been getting. My bench soil (opposite the dam) has a lot of sand it in so I'm getting washout due to the whole drainage area being a bowel to begin with.

Any thoughts on this?

Use rolls of straw matting instead of just straw. It will help getting the grass to grow faster and will help keeping it from washing out.

A pallet conveniently floated up during high water where a large amount of sandy material washes in. In the last two rains it is nearly covered. I'm going to try adding a few others to act as rip rap.

Your pictures are still not loading HTNFSH, has anyone heard an update on when this will be fixed?

Yeah, I'd like to know why the pics can't be viewed either. Moderators?

I did get some rain yesterday and it was neat to watch 3 separate streams to fill the pond on top run off. A nice 2.5hr shower added about 18 inches and cover 1/3 of the bottom.

Well, unfortunately, mother nature decided to skip my 16 acres with any rainfall this summer. As of today, I am looking at a very, very expensive 1 acre hole in the ground with a nice dry dock. I had about 5 feet of water in the bottom in June and maybe 18" now. Not to mention any rain we have gotten, just resulted in backfilling the bottom in silt. I've got 7-10 acres of run-off area but that means nothing without rain.

I'd share pictures, but that doesn't seem to work either.

Two questions for you experts.

1. Is it possible the dry sides acted like a sponge because they didn't get fully saturated, therefore absorbing what little water I have?
2. I am seriously considering a well, but drilling locations are very limited.

Thoughts?

With a fresh bottom, (minus silt, vegetation, leaves) this is the time to add a polymer sealant like soil floc. That is, if you are concerned that your bottom isn't holding water or your sides are not sealed properly. Even if you wanted to have faith that your pond has very little leaks, you will hopefully never have this chance again. You have 18" of water, is it enough to put a small flat bottom boat in and have someone pull you back and forth with ropes or propel yourself with a pole or oars? I would consider taking this chance to add a little 'insurance' that any seams in the bottom may have opened or the sides aren't sealed and consider a treatment of soil floc.

Then, when the rain comes (it has to since you are not in an arid zone) and snow comes it can help reseal the bottom. Downsides to this idea is cost, although you could go lighter on the application due to more ideal conditions in the bottom of your pond. The other downside is that the water is cold and the product works better when the water is warm. You could see how it goes this winter and in the spring when water temps pick up add it then (hopefully over the winter you will gain a couple more feet of water again?)

I can see how frustrating that is to look at the big hole and not see it fill up!

Well, I'm now getting quotes for drilling a well. I've read several articles and weighing the options. but it's become an eyesore and disappointment to visitors. What is really frustrating, there appears to be a spring 20-30 yards behind the overflow pipe below the dam.

I've attached two aerial pics. The first was when things still looking promising and clean (June 2020). The second is from October and you can see the vegetation and lack of water. Thankfully most of the vegetation died with the first hard frost. I realize that that at 5-10pgm this would take long time to fill, however, I am also hoping to curb or slow the silted erosion from hard rains.

My first thought is that the spring you are talking about, is the water leaking from your pond. Do you think there is any chance in that?

I second the vote for Soil Flock. I also am curious about the spring behind the dam, was it always there, or did it show up wen the water started filling the pond?

If the bottom of the pond isn't sealed, then the 10 GPM will might not do you any good, like trying to fill a bathtub full of water with the drain plug removed.......

My personal pond is a watertable pond, dug in sandy soil, so the bottom is not sealed. Right now it's about 6.5' low, the lowest it's been since it was renovated in 2008/2009. My current well produces 25 gpm, and I tested it over a week's time a few years ago to see if it would be enough to keep the pond full, and it wasn't. As the pond level rose, so did the amount of water leaking out through the ground - I stopped the test when I was leaking 18 gpm, and the pond was still a few feet below full pool.

I would approach it using a combination of bentonite and soil floc. Spread the bentonite out and then follow behind it with the Soil Floc. Adding plenty of both. Or drain the pond locate some clay, spread it across the ponds bottom and sides, pack it in and refill. It wont be cheap either way but if you don't take care of it now it will be a problem for the life of the pond.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I had my local water & soil conservation team out here on Thursday of last week. The engineer asked where is all the water went. I didn't take kindly to the humor. After some soil evaluation the recommendation was line the pond with clay. We did some math and estimated 1800-2000 yards of clay needed. Trying to find that much and have it hauled in...any guesses on cost? My guess is $20k and thats just getting on-site. No operator or machines moving and packing in.

We inspected the area below the dam, and found that it was wet, but hard to know if the pond is actually leaking or just spring water. I can see the orange stain of iron on the leaves but nothing like that in the pond itself.

From what I read, soil floc requires the pond to have a moderate amount of water for application. I only have about 25% bottom coverage up to 2.5 feet deep.

Bentonite will required a dry pond and the material to be tilled in. Unfortunately now is not the time of year for that. To add insult to injury, my excavator refuses to return my phones and text messages.

So...at this point my only really choice is to wait for winter and spring rains and see how far it comes up.



.

Just saw this post...getting to it late, sorry.

But...I feel your pain. I had a 2-1/2 acre pond completed in July, 2016, and it did not fill due to drought until Fall of 2018. Harrumph. It was about 1/2 full in June, 2017, but it took another 15'ish months to totally fill.

It was simply a lack of rain/drought. When we did get some rain in that dry period the ground would soak up the moisture so fast that nothing was left for runoff to fill the pond. But...the good news is that when the rains finally came it filled up just fine.

I suspect yours will too.

Thanks for the vote of confidence Dave_IA. She rose about 1.5" over thanksgiving and the ground is staying damp. Hoping for some snow and serious runoff throughout the winter.

Well... we got 1" inch of rain and some snow 10 days ago. No real ground saturation yet and watching the forecast like a hawk.

I did get my bridge finished up. I used 3 telephone poles for beams and rough-sawn 1x6 oak for the decking. I'm debating the install of the pavilion on the dock or hold off a save the funds until we see if it holds water.

Neat

Looks great!

Hey soil floc experts, I've got a little water in the pond now. Could I add soil floc in stages as I get more surface area, or need to wait until the bottom is completely covered with a few feet?

Based on google earth, there is about 27,000 square feet of bottom. I am not taking the side walls into consideration yet.

For Soilfloc, ping TJ, he is always willing to help.

FWIW, if I understand correctly, you can till in Soilfloc into the dry soils of the pond. Once you get rain, it will swell and clog in place if it doesn't wash out. I would assume a combination of tilling, then laying down something to prevent erosion or even seeding it with ryegrass or similar to keep everything put until it fills.

Well good news and bad news... we had a good amount of rain and saturation the first week of February. The water level rose 6" and got me pretty excited. It's been cold with some light snow ever since and the water level has lost about 3" of the gain. It sure is heck not hot enough to evaporate that fast and must be leaching worse than I thought.

Does anyone know how I can get I touch with " TJ"? Second, does anyone know of an expert in Ohio I get can onsite for a thorough evaluation and help plan the next steps? Third have any of you had issues like this get any recourse from your contractor?

Happy to help all I can, let’s chat.

Tj@hudlandmgmt.com

Give TJ a shout. I'd recommend the Soilfloc, he can help with application. In any case I'd recommend cleaning all the cover out from inside the pond so the bottom is clean before applying it, that way it can get to the whole pond bottom. Then put the cover (habitat) back in the pond. I know, I know, a PITA.

Did the NRCS give you any idea on how many acres of watershed feeds the pond? It just sounds like the pond isn't sealed and any water that gets in there leaks out, but that is an observation from here, not on-site.

You will also need to put down erosion matting to stop erosion. Look for erosion mat that is 100% organic, with jute fibers and not plastic mesh/netting. The plastic mesh/netting, when under water can act as a gill net, catching a lot of fish. It won't decompose like the jute erosion mat. The erosion mat is needed so the soilfloc isn't washed into the pond as it fills, causing a potential leak where the soil is eroded away.

A big thanks to TJ for spending some time to talk about my current situation. I'm weighing all of the options at the moment to determine the best course of action.

The hardest part is getting good data on rainfall and drawdown because I am not on-site regularly.

Happy to help, amigo - that's my favorite part of being a Pond Boss volunteer - and also expanding my PB family. Here anytime to assist, you know how to find me.

So here is an update on the water level. It's up 8" since January 1st, give or take and inch.

Pond Update

The last hard rain had given me a nice bump, but still not back to the high water level last year. 1.60" total over 48hrs February 28th through March 1st. The pond level subsequently rose 15". This was after the snow was melted at gone. I also discovered today that minnows survived the winter and have already spawned in the last week or so.

Well, it's been about 3 months since my last update. Spring rains came and went the pond is in worse condition than when we finished a year ago.

The water level has never risen to the level it was last year (5-6 feet deep) after it was finished and tracked in. We just added dye finally and will see if it's leaking out the dam or not. The contractor who did the work believes is that the soil is not just sandy, but 1/3 or more of the bottom is sandstone and that we are leeching/leaking through a seam. To say this project has been a nightmare thus far is an understatement.


Needless to say, the hopes of getting married this October on the dock with a full pond are nearing zero.

At this point, I'm likely to be using a combination of the following products.

Bulk blue clay material used in landfills for capping
Sodium Bentonite 2lbs-4lbs per square foot
Soil Floc 16-32 units

I've got another question for you experts.... the saga continues

Last year, my contractor was "spreading out" the rest of the muck to dry and repack he mentioned that the more he worked an area on the bottom, the wetter it got. His dozer was floating on muck bottom and nearly got stuck. We had a dry so he would stay off and wait for it to crust over and work it again.
It never did fully dry before the rains started.

I spoke with yet another pond consultant yesterday and explained my situation. They mentioned the likely reason is that he was pumping up groundwater through the area that is not stabilized. Thus a likely source of my leak. The recommendation I received is to pack the area with stone to stabilize it before applying any kind of sealer (clay, bentonite etc) otherwise it will continue to leak. How much and how thick is the big question.

The groundwater issue makes sense because my property and region of the state have a large makeup of sand and sandstone. The water table rises and falls quickly because of a fractured subgrade.

Thoughts...?

Well, another month later and more challenges. I pumped most of the water out and preparing to remove and disposed of all the organic habitat.

I'm throwing in the towel...

Sorry about your troubles. A stony bottom is never a good thing, and usually requires a good, thick layer of clay put down in lifts and compacted to stop it from leaking. One crack in that rock could be connected to many others down below.

Have you considered instead a large rubber liner? It may be an expensive initial investment, but almost guarantees the pond will hold water.

I came to that conclusion and have all the costs for a liner. I was ready to buy a liner at a cost of over $60k installed but met with one more contractor in my area that builds ponds locally out of complete chance. (or a prayer if you ask my soon to be wife) He convinced me to try and dig out the area we think is the problem in the bottom and re-pack with some good material I found on my property. The cost for this is pretty reasonable for what is planning to do, but this outfit has mine-sized earth moving equipment at the site I visited.

We will also be cake layering polymer as we build up the area and then pull a final coat on the entire bottom surface.

My previous contractor relied on me to figure out what the problem is and how to fix it, not his expertise or help from a qualified source. I fired him and now have to deal with those consequences.

It's been a month since Contractor #2 has left the premises. He determined that the pond was leaking through a layer of old pond junk material that was under the new dam and never removed. We put in a new much larger and deeper core trench in front of the dam, repacked and feathered in. 300 series machines and rock trucks make for quick work.

We raised the bottom of the "problem area, 15k square feet" by 2ft and I applied 4x the recommended dosage of soil floc polymer on top covering about 20k square feet. No sooner did the deep end get completed and we had a rain event that created a pool. They got finished and we had about 1.5" drop from hurricane Ida. Just ten miles south of me got 6 inches of rain.

After a month, we are holding the same amount of water except for a little loss from evaporation.

If ya'll don't mind, send some water my way to SE Ohio.

That's good news. I hear you on the rain woes. It's been so dry here that the grass is now brown. I've lost around 4" from a stock tank that I use as a small ornamental pond just due to evaporation.

What a great idea!

We need a way for the people with too much water to send it to the people suffering from a drought.

All we require is some genius to figure out how to implement Pond Boss Prime - where everyone gets free shipping on their water deliveries!


In the meantime, congrats on getting your pond sealed! Hopefully, you will soon catch some nice fall rains.

It sounds like you have a pretty good shot of fixing the problem with contractor #2!

Fingers are crossed that you get a good round of tropical rain without the wind problems.

$60K for a pond liner, OMG. Glad you didn't need to go that way.
Good luck.

Glad I could be part of this project - learned a ton. Hoping for rain and continued seal!

So I've been praying for water since the reconstruction has completed on August 16th, 2021. I was hoping (with little chance) we would be half full by our wedding day. (10/16)

The pond is still holding and my yardstick indicated +2" from at the current location. We turned on the garden hose while I got to work rebuilding a makeshift dam on a small creek 500 feet away. The little reservoir I created would hold about 1500 gallons and only take 22 minutes to empty. It refills at 10gpm with dry conditions. Well, between the garden hose and my pump, I increased the water level 5" to +7" on my yardstick by Friday morning.

Mind you our wedding is Saturday. By 4pm Friday afternoon, a storm blew in and rained steadily for several hours. I checked my reservoir and it breached the top of my dam and was able to run the pump well into the night. When I shut it down, it was 12:30 in the morning. I had to save some energy for the wedding day.

Wedding day, the clouds parted early and dried out the yard quickly with a nice warm breeze. The yardstick was now at +14.5 inches. That increase overnight was substantial. It's been dry up until yesterday but I can see with my pond cams, it's holding and rising ever so slowly with the intermittent rains.

Between a new core trench and a copious amount of soil floc, I'm super happy with the results so far and the deep end is now past 4 feet. The real test will be from the hydraulic pressure as the volume gets closer to full pool. I've estimated we are only 12% full (400k gallons), but zero loss.

Well, my pond is ever so slowly moving in the right direction. My yard stick measured an additional 4.5" since I was here mid-October. I should be able to add 6" while I'm here for 10 days and surpass 5ft of depth. Not bad for starting with a dry pond during the driest part of the year (August - November).

Thursday's forecast is calling or rain so I hoping to take advantage with my pump.

I was able to add 11 inches of water the pond in the last 10 days. The deepest area in front of the dock is beyond 5 ft. I've estimated were are about 20% full or 600k gallons and holding. I'm praying for a really wet winter.

Well, it's time for Mother Nature to step up her game. I had to pump away for the season with the freezing nights. Please send any and all the rain and snow my direction. We're still short about 2.7 million gallons.

Congrats...sounds and looks like you got it figured out. I do not have a good aerial of my pond other than Google earth, but your shape and size looks very similar (pic attached, I think). What part of OH?

Dustin

Thanks Dustin. I'll be a lot more comfortable with the project once the pond gets to 3/4 full, but she is holding well so far. I'm SE Ohio by the way.

I tried searching this, but how are some of you able to upload pictures so you can see them in a thread, versus downloading a file extension?

You have to save the picture to an on-line site such as imgur. Copy/paste the share link to the post and you are done.

We finally got some rain on 12/6/21. This is a picture of the north end facing a drain I plumed to capture additional run-off. Still a long way to go!

[img]https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rUor3pkg_TPa7UVjC3fedvyGxKSeALzz/view?usp=sharing[/img]

I'm curious how many pond owners are obsessed with rainfall as much as I am.

We had two major events inside of a week dropping 2" on 12/1, then 1.25" 6 days later. That netted us a 14.5-inch increase in the water level. A large portion of the water comes from my neighbor's property. We are close to 6/10 of an acre surface area now and roughly 6ft in the deep end.

He has about 2.5 acres of field that sheds off into a roadside ditch that I collect with two 12 inch culvert pipes. This really helps to fill my pond. He used to keep it cut low, but now leaves it to stand 2-3 feet of field grasses. Do you think this is absorbing/ slowing down how much water I could be getting?

Lol when your pond is filling up it drives you nuts but after it’s full then not so much…..

I’m down about 4 feet. It’ll take a whopper rain to help.

I’m in Springboro area and have chased water for a year since build, first fill up, then changes above me (neighbor built house and cut water flow to me).
I feel your water pain and have gone from trying well water (not enough gpm) to ditch water solution.
I, too, have a field ditch I’ve tapped for help. At first I was transfer pumping from a collection tub. Wow, what a pain. I lived with that pump like we were married and tracked every inch, charted it, and measured on a stick just like you have ! My family was pretty sick of me celebrating each inch milestone.
I did some research over the winter and this spring I built a check dam in the ditch with pipe to the pond. The pipe takes the collected pool of water behind the dam and sends to pond. I was worried about the elevation, but am getting about 7-9” of vertical drop over a 90’ length. It works perfectly. I have a screen on the dam side of the pipe and a cap for high water or ‘pond full’ conditions. I’m about 10 months in to this solution and have learned a lot. I’ve adjusted the check dam design a few times and am really happy with it now. (Had a 4” in 2 hour water event in June so I’ve seen the high water mark…or probably a 20 year flood condition anyway)
I’ve learned about the ditch too. By pooling the water and eventually capturing almost 100% of it, you get extended water capture after any rain….except…when crops are in the field area and high weeds are in the lead-in ditches. Yes, to answer your question, the surface runoff is dramatically affected by vegetation cycles (not an expert, I just feel the effect).
Sorry so long. Your problem really resonated with me.
I too had a small leak to solve before the water source problem.
I am beyond proud of the beautiful ecosystem I’ve created and joy we get from it. I know your project didn’t hit this wedding timeline, but you are well on your way to many other memories made!
Good luck !

@KingfisherBoiler

You cracked me up with the celebration of milestones. Whether with friends or family, I am constantly calculating GPM input per rainfall and sharing details with anyone that will listen. Usually just close friends and family. I'd compare the sickness to someone with a brand new snowmobile in the garage without any snow to ride on for the last last two years and hanging on every last word of the latest weather forecast praying for a substantial event.

I noticed with every major rain event, SW Ohio just gets hammered.

After rereading your reply, I should have asked to mow my neighbor's place (runoff area only) short for the fall/winter. It would have really helped.

Well mother nature continues to be fruitful with the rain. We added 8" of depth over the weekend plus 1" from my efforts of pumping. Out of the 3.4 million gallons we need, I figure we are 30% full now.

I thought I was done pumping water for the winter due to freezing temps, but had a window and took advantage. Wish I could have run more than 6 hrs, but I'll take what I can get. There was so much water flowing in my creek that I was able to run continuously only stopping briefly to refuel.

Been a minute since my last update. At this point, I am thinking we are close to 50% full based on volume, but need another 5.5 feet or so to get to the set waterline.

I do wish I could be pumping water, but mother nature has been pretty decent in the last 6 weeks. More rain on the way.

I'm adding pictures to my gallery page so they don't have to be downloaded.

Finally got a chance to float my pond and found the water depth just over 11ft. We need about 4' feet to achieve full pool. The fatheads, shiners and 500 bluegill stocked in early March are doing well.

We also added some subsurface broken concrete structure about 50 feet long. Looking forward to adding some gravel banks, hardscape and other fish structure.

Just another shout out to Teejay for his help in rectifying the disaster of a pond I had in 2020/2021.

More pictures are added to my gallery page.

Well, the saga continues.

According to the local weather stations near my property, we received 2.5-3" of rain over the weekend. My water level increased by exactly 1/2". No real runoff to speak of and my pond is still leaking or leeching water. Now that the field grasses are thick and trees are leafed out, increasing the water level runoff will be minimal. Every single major storm has slid past or peters out before it lands on my property.

I live near a 1300 acre lake that blew rose 7 feet of water in 36 hours this weekend That's nearly 3 billion gallons. Makes me want to cry.

God himself must be really unhappy with my past transgressions. I can honestly say that maintaining a boat was cheaper and more fun.

11’! Awesome!

Are you at .3” daily loss? Through the dam? You didn’t rehab/apply polymer to dam, correct?

More rain please..

You have to have a leak somewhere I am sorry to say. I live in NE OH, so same side as the state as you, and 2022 was a dry summer here. Our 1 acre pond dropped about 10", and I pumped water out of it to water my lawn. By mid November we were full again, and have stayed full since. I remember when my contractor dug my pond he hit shale which was oozing water up at a fairly fast rate. I thought that was a good thing, but he said if water can come in that way, it can also leave that way too. He covered it up with clay. I read that you hit sandstone, so maybe your contractor didn't cover it up good enough? Here in OH our problem is too much water. I think that this was only the second or third year in the 25 years of the life of my pond that the emergency spillway wasn't used. Your pond should have filled in less than a year. Ours filled in four months, and that was just from rain and snow. I have never pumped water into it, generally I pump tens of thousands of gallons out of it ever year. Maybe try some fluorescent green dye in your pond and look to see where it comes out from. If you don't see any, then it has to be going out through sandstone fissures. I wish you the best.

Thanks for the post Willyfield20. Yeah, I know it's still leaking. I've estimated 6-10,000 gallons a day. I've got over $100k wrapped up in this project and not spending any more. Every bit of information I have found information on this forum and elsewhere that says all ponds leak or seep. It's just a matter of having enough incoming rainfall to offset the difference.

I've used dye in the past and it doesn't work. By the time the water filters through the dam or underground, it's clean on the other side.

I used to live in NE Ohio myself and the soils have a lot more clay content than they do in the hills of SE Ohio. Lack of run-off, sandy soils, terrible contractors, and my limited knowledge have all contributed to the challenge of rebuilding this pond.

I'd really recommend talking to TJ and trying some of the pond sealer that he has. I have a unit here and I'm going to try it in some really sandy soil - almost like beach sand. I just need to get a small excavator to clean out a pit that I dug with a bucket on a tractor, apply it and fill with water from the pond.

I don't blame you for not wanting to put more of your hard earned money into it. I was blissfully unaware of pond construction when I hired my guy. I know for a fact all he used was a D6 to compact the clay, and I also never saw him dig a core trench either. The D6 was the only piece of equipment I saw him use. The first summer our pond dropped a good foot, or more, but it filled up in the fall. Since that first summer it never dropped more than 10" which it did last year. I did have our county soil guy come out before I dug my pond though. My neighbor had a backhoe and he dug some test holes for me. The county guy looked to see if we had enough clay, and run off which we had plenty of both. I was fortunate my pond guy new what he was doing. The other contractors I hired to build my house, I was not so fortunate.... at all! Best of luck, and sorry for your troubles.

I wish I had better news, but we still haven't seen any positive changes in the water level. The pond is about 8" lower than it was last year at this time.

Draining and starting over, is not an option.

Just a quick update...

Still fighting a leak that generates 5-7gpm somewhere under the base of the dam. Running water has not stopped below the toe of the dam since it was initially built.

Despite 2 years of reconstruction efforts and 2600 lbs of polymer sealant, the pond will not come close to full pool.

My next course of action will be building a small pond below the dam to capture the water loss and pump it back into main pond. It's not an ideal solution, but starting over is not an option. This solution will cost me almost nothing and hopefully keep the volume of water coming in higher than what leaks out.

If it's a small pond that you will be constructing, look at lining the pond to make sure that it doesn't leak.

We shall see Esshup. I wanted to use an EPDM liner, but he doesn't want to. Considering I'm not paying for it, what can I do?

Out of curiosity are you familiar with "dirtperfect" given he is from Indiana?

6 GPM = 8,640 G daily

Acre inch = 27,254 G

Daily loss [including evaporation] = .31" Excluding evaporation you could be .15-.2" daily loss due to seepage.

[In the pond rehab business we don't consider anything under .33" a reason to address in areas receiving at least 20" annual precipitation.]

Prior to rehab you were losing over 2" daily IIRC.

Your efforts reduced leak rate by 85-90%

Your reduction in water loss is reason for congratulations!

Per our multiple discussions your watershed and annual rainfall isn't sufficient to keep your pond full without assistance of supplemental irrigation. This serves as the impetus for your continued angst I guess. Obviously unless one of these factors is addressed [pond size reduction, increase watershed, supplemental irrigation] even a pond sealed like tupperware won't remain full due to atmospheric influence if precipitation cannot replace the loss. Pond was not designed appropriately.

If you're going to pump water back in you better check out going solar. I have 2 wells, 1 solar, 1 electric, pumping from 150 ft. deep. The solar setup wasn't cheap (about 7K) but I only incurred the original setup cost, it pumps about 18 GPM whenever the sun is out. The 3 HP electric pump does 35 GPM but runs about $10 per day to operate. Since you're just pumping from a downhill pond, you should be able to get by with a much smaller setup, you may be able to do it for less than $1000. Just a thought. My 3 acre pond has no watershed, the solar setup has been in almost a year and works great. I haven't been forced to use the Electric well and I'm in East Texas which went thru a really bad dry spell last year.

Nope, never heard of them.

TJ,

There is something clearly off that is not making sense.

The pond was dry August 10th 2021 after reconstruction and soil floc application.

Rainfall
August 12th of 2021 to April 20th of 2022 totaled 40.71" and captured approximately a net positive of 4.5 acre-feet of water (1.4 million gallons .65 acres of surface and depth of 9-10ft.) That is a gain of .5" per day over 8 months.

May 1st, 2022 to April 4th, 2023 totaled 47.7" and the current level of the pond is 4" below where it was in April of 2022. That is a net-loss of 52".

How is it possible to have a net-loss over 11 months with nearly 48" of accumulated rainfall, when the first 8 months filled in with no trouble?

What is the pan evaporation rate for your area over that amount of time? (It is dependent on the month and the weather - use the chart that NOAA has to calculate it.)

Agree with esshup.

Your first period of rising water does not include the summer months.

A hot, dry day in July or August can easily evaporate 1/4" per day. If it is windy and very dry, I think you could maybe reach 1/2" under perfectly bad conditions.

A 1/4" loss for 200 days costs you 50" of water level in your pond.

I know that sucks big time. Better go read the "rain dance" thread and see what worked. (Tongue in cheek.)

Well, it's a hot summer once again. I'm still losing the same amount of water per day (roughly 7,000 gallons). Aside from using polymer on the inside of the dam, repairing the 1 acre pond either by hauling in clay, bentonite or other material is out of the question.


My guy came up with a cheaper solution. We created a 1/8 acre containment pond below the toe of the main dam with the end goal of pumping the water back into the big pond. It's fed by the leak and what appears to be a spring. Despite the lack of rain it's been filling every day since we completed the job on 7/3. It should hold 90-120 thousand gallons. It could double in size if we blow out some trees and build up the dam another 4-6 feet.

Now I need to figure out an ideal pumping solution, preferably electric on a timer.

How high do you have to lift the water to get it from the catch basin back up into your main pond?

How clean can you keep the water you are pumping?

Will you have AC electricity at the site?

The centrifugal "lawn irrigation" type pumps that many of the manufacturers sell are pretty darn efficient in terms of gallons/kWh and should closely match your requirements? Almost every pump likes "cleaner" water, but some are more tolerant of trash and debris than others.

See if you can get a good sales rep or engineer on the phone or in a chat. I have sometimes gotten excellent people that know their stuff, and sometimes gotten idiots that are just reading off of the same literature I can read on the website.

If you do get a good person, ask about the best "duty cycle" for the pump you are sizing. If they say "two hours on, then two hours off for cooling", then use that info and your desired daily pump rate to size the correct pump for your application. Since you are going to be running this pump long term, you definitely need to utilize "best practices" for whatever style of pump you end up installing.

Good luck on your pond-topping project!

P.S. Glad to see you managed to make some lemonade with the lemons you were handed at your pond.

Thanks FishinRod,

Duty cycles is exactly what I am researching at the moment haha.

The run is roughly 220 feet with 47 feet of elevation to overcome. The goal is to run the pump system 2 to 4 times until I reach full pool, then hopefully less frequently. The total dynamic head is 62ft using 2" discharge line.

There are several ways do to this. I love the idea of clean water. (it's not cleared yet with all the construction). My first idea would be a large 18" standpipe with a 6" casing and pea gravel between the two for a fitler. I'm also considering the biomass balls used in a self-contained water feature pond.Then use a continuous-duty well pump or a high-head submersible pump to move the water. This would require a small dock so I would have access to set and maintain the pump.

I'm going to use the overlflow to snake 2" rolled pipe discharge line. This will also give me the option of running my gas powered 120gpm if I want to move a lot of water in a short period and it will serve as my temp solution until I figure out the permanent one.

No real progress on moving water from the reservoir to the big pond. I did a test run with my 5hp HP pump and it works fine. The biggest downside is the reservoir has been filled for 2 months, but won't clear with the exposed hillside around it.

I haven't seen this much dry dirt since 2nd repair after it rose to its highest level in January of 2022. I'm reconsidering starting over (drain, remove all structure minus the dock) and install a liner. It's a $120k eyesore in its current state.

For anyone looking to build a pond and want to know what a worst-case scenario looks like, feel free to reach out.

#1 Learn for yourself how good ponds are built before writing the first check
#2 Verify the excavation company, jobs completed, and references
#3 Have the time to watch the excavation and ask questions (no one knows everything)
#4 Set up a timelapse camera to record the job
#5 No clay, no water
#6 Synthetic additives for poor soil or construction are not a fix.