Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction New pond water loss

I grew up on a farm where I fished two ponds that my Dad built in the 60's. After patiently waiting through 3 years of summer rains and overly saturated soil, my husband and I finally built MY 10' deep, 1/4 acre dream pond behind our country house last summer. As I did my homework, I hired a well respected contracter, one who formerly worked for NRCS. He knew his stuff and created our pond - researched the soil, layout, trenching, etc. Weather was good for digging and we even had a perfect amount of rain the week of construction; such aided the compacting procedure. He was most pleased with the clay content and everything went well. However, Mother Nature wasn't finished giving me fits. After construction, we immediately went into drought and had little water fill until after Christmas. Between January and March, we were pounded with rains that filled the pond to within 1-2 feet of full. Surrounding soils were thoroughly saturated. What a celebration it was - until it stopped raining and we noted that we started to rapidly lose water. We are losing a couple of inches per day and it has now dropped 3 feet or better. I've read many of PB's archived forums and researched everything on-line from pond liners to sealers. I do not intend to give up on my dream pond and am reaching out for answers to shore up my disappointment with hope that all will turn out well. My contractor told me to contact him upon finding the low water mark. In the meantime, I am researching what my options may be surrounding the worst of circumstances. I appreciate any and all thoughts regarding possibilities to offer encouragement for success of my pond. At least I was lucky in canceling my fish stocking order in time.

Welcome to the forum, Farmgirl! We're glad you're here but sorry that you're experiencing issues with water loss. Hold on for some thoughts and input from the experts here. Do you have any pics of your place? Always nice to see a member's pond and it may help with better understanding of your situation.

Thanks for the immediate "welcome" Todd. I will research how to post photos and do so. I'm not a pro at forum activity.

Happy to get to be the first to welcome you!

Check out this link to the forum page on uploading photos. It's one way to get them on the site. If you have questions on the process, just let us know and someone will be able to walk you through the process. It's not too bad once you've done a few times.

Here is my first attempt to upload an image. Hopefully it will prove successful. Please forgive me if not.
I note that I should have listed my topic as a specific forum such as "New Pond Leaks". Is there an option to change it or should I not be concerned? Thanks for your help Todd!

Another Welcome from right across the state line in Ohio, ( near Dayton) and that pond looks similar to the one I had dug 4 years ago. when my pond filled up, there was ashort time maybe the whole first year where the surrounding soils were absorbing water and making the clay bond together for a better seal. I never lost anything like 3" a day but the rate it was lowering has slowly been declining each year as everything settles. If you are truly losing 3" a day I would be very concerned. Was all the clay packed down on the botton of the pond or only in certain areas? Was a sheepsfoot roller used? Perhaps a less steep of a gradient could be done on the remake to include a ful 100% of the bottom could get a could packing of at least 6-8" of good clay. Just a thought....I do agree that at this point letting it lower to the point of wher eit stops would be the best bet and then look a tthe edges for any rock/gravel seams perhaps. Id monitor the water levels every day and keep track of them as you may have more then 1 leak at different levels.

Salmonid

Thanks for the welcome neighbor. In answer to your question, the pond was not packed with a sheepsfoot but hopefully packed well by the dozers in the 4 day construction. I attached a photo of the original site prior to filling. As I'm not highly informed about pond building, everything now triggers concern. I even wonder about the cut-style clay sides as I don't know if they could present a leaching problem. However, the experienced pond builder came from NRCS and should know the ropes.

Good job on posting the pics, Farmgirl! Mark B makes a solid point about the sheepsfoot roller. You have absolutely got to get your clay compacted in 4" - 6" lifts (according to all I've read here - I'm not experienced with this so I'm just sharing what I've learned by reading) in order to ensure proper compaction and sealing. If the guy didn't do this, you could, in fact, have a potentially big problem. It may also be an easy fix, but obviously you've got to get it figured out for starters. I like the shape of your pond, by the way.

As for moving the thread, that isn't necessary, but in order to get a broader audience chiming in on your issue for more suggestions, you may want to start a thread there and simply reference this one so folks will know where to look to see the origins. You could recap all of this in one post and even add your pics to it.

Did he core the dam? If not, it could be running under it and will always leak. Do you see any sign of leaks behind the dam?

Thanks everyone for your thoughts. Yes Dave, the dam was cored; to date, we see no sign of leakage there. We are watching daily for ANY signs and see nothing as of yet, except dropping water levels.

My guess is that it's leaking out thu the bottom. A dozer or other tracked dirt moving equipment won't have enough pounds per square inch on the soil to properly compact it.

Here's an example. When I had my pond renovated, we had a large excavator doing the digging. IIRC the machine weighed somewhere around 70,000 pounds. He tracked across a wet area to get to the back side of the pond. The excavator only sunk in a couple of inches. The ground must have been packed pretty hard, right? When I walked in the tracks that he left, I sunk up to my knees in the same soil, and I wear size 11 1/2 shoes.......

The only ponds that I know that hold water and haven't been compacted with a sheepsfoot roller are dug in clay that could be used for making pottery.