Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site How many people use a well to top off there pond?

Im planning a pond....I think I will have a lot of runoff, but Im wondering how many people out there use a well to top off there pond? and how much it costs everyone? I know the answers will greatly differ, depending on region, if the pond holds water, runoff amount, etc... but just trying to get a ballpark idea of what it will cost me a month pumping water to get keep this pond topped off. Worst case scenerio..best case scenerio.

We use a well and pump water during dry times, keep in mind this in an older well that was put in in the early 60's when the pond was built, roughly 75ft deep. Running it continualy for a month the well adds approximately $200 to our monthly electric bill.

It takes a while to bring the water level up on 10 acre pond during the summer months, my best guess is that it pumps 60+ gallons per minute.

last year i used mine on the weekend, would run it for about 30hrs, didnt really notice much of a price increase. itsa 3hp pump...my old 5hp went out.

It will all depend on the efficiency of the pump and how much water you need it to pump. I use my well to maintain the water level of my 1/10 acre pond and it has worked out pretty good. I turn on the water 3-4 times a month for 12-16 hours. My pump is only 10gpm (1" of water level in my pond is roughly 3100 gallons) so it takes a while to notice a difference in the water level.

I called my well guy and he said that I should make sure that the line going out to the pond was at least 3/4" so that the pump would stay on the whole time as the pump uses the most electricity (and is under the most stress) when it first starts up. He also recommended getting a 20gpm well pump upgrade.

I really haven't noticed much of an increase in the bill due to the small size of the pond, however, if you have to run in 24/7 you will notice a significant increase in your bill.

Does the depth of the water help the evaporation amount? I notice a mud puddle dries up quickly...yet my ditch which is 2 feet deep doest dry up as fast? If my pond is 8 feet deep..wont the cold bottom keep the evaporation rate down?

You raise and interesting question Face. I'm no expert so it will be interesting to see the responses. Theo, DIED or anyone else can ya give us a physics lesson? My guess is that it has more to do with how much surface area your pond has rather than the depth and water temperature. Example, if you take 16 ounces of water and pour it into a very skinny tall glass and set it in the sun, versus the same 16 oz in say a shallow glass baking dish (one of those square kind the wife make casserole in), the water in the shallow dish will evaporate faster because it has more surface area. But that is just a wild guess from a bean counter so wait for an expert response.

In direct answer to your original question... (Topic: How many people use a well to top off there pond?)... I doubt that many folks here use a well to maintain water level. My place has 3 surface acres so to raise the surface an inch would take over 81,000 gallons. That's a lot of water pumping, but I do know that some folks here do and DIED intends to if he can get the well drilled and camouflaged before his wife finds out.

Take a gold star out of petty cash, Jeff. Surface area is monumentally more important to the evaporation rate than depth.

I believe cold water does evaporate slightly (perhaps minisculy) slower than warm water. Warm air will hold more water than cool air; cold water plus air makes cool air, while warm water plus air makes warm air (I'm not sure if that's physics or alchemy). But I will bet a cube of Diet Mountain Dew that differences in evaporation due to depth (which in turn affects temperature, as face72 speculated) are at least 2 orders of magnitude less than differences due to surface area.

hmm so evaporation has little to do with water tempature? I would figure it would. Kind of like a pot of water on the stove boiling. As it gets hotter it creates steam. Isnt steam and extreme form of evaporation...or is that something totally different.

No, you're right - temp does make a difference. But the temp range over which water boils (say, room temp to 212 F) is much greater than the surface temperature difference between side by side deep and shallow ponds (guessing maybe 15 degrees difference, tops).

Yea! I finally got a pond question right!

I many only have four star rating but at least now one of them is gold!

I run a well into one of my ponds 24/7 from sometime in April or May to the end of October to keep it cool enough for trout and to keep nutrients and ammonia dilluted. This in turn runs into two more ponds, so I don't have problems wth water levels. One other pond is not part of the flow through.

I use a well all the time. It's 360 feet deep, water is pumped from 180 feet down, and the well produces around 60 gallons per minute. It services my fish vat shed as well as all 8 of my ponds (I have them engineered for one to flow into the next, into the next, into the next, so I use the water over and over before it has a chance to leave.
The well is turned on when I need to keep some fish in the vat shed or when the ponds need topping off (we have had so much rain that all ponds are overflowing...have been for more than a month.) If run full time, the electric bill is about $250 per month. Normally, I don't run the well but half that much.
Remember this before drilling a well...it takes 27,000 gallons of water to raise one acre one inch. So, if you are planning to drill a well, know what your water needs are. Don't drill a 5 gallon per minute well and expect to maintain a five acre pond.
Regarding evaporation, temperature does play a role. Warmer water evaporates at a faster rate, especially when the humidity is low. I have seen ponds evaporate half an inch a day in the hottest summer months when humidity is less than 30% and the daytime highs are 100.
But, keep in mind that water can evaporate even in low temperatures. When air is dry, it acts as a sponge, absorbing as much water as it can. Surface area is significant. More air contacting more water leads to more evaporation.
In winter, in the north, ice "evaporates" even when temperatures are well below freezing because water molecules are absorbed into air in a process called "sublimation."
Bottom line is this...a huge part of the water cycle is to transport water through the sky. It gets there, by absorption, evaporation and sublimation. Then, it moves around and falls down. Right now, it seems to all be falling on Texas.

My 5 acre pond has no runoff to it, so all my water needs come from a well. 20 hp submersible that is also used to irrigate my soybean and rice field adjacent to my pond. It is fairly expensive. $150/month approx. But its worth it. the well puts out about 800 gal./minute. usually run 24 hrs. every 2-3 weeks. If we could get some rain that Bob Lusk is getting it would help a little in my pond and a lot on my soybeans.

Man 150 a month 250 ?? Thats some big bucks. See I have a good source of water from this creek I have (thats unfortunatly 10 feet below the grade where I want my pond. So I can pump that water up 10 feet to my desired location....but for 150 or 250 a month? If I didnt have a pond at all...I would consider it. But when I already have 2 medium size ponds that the stream runs into... that extra power bill is too rich for my blood. Thanks for the info guys!

If only pumping 10 ft. vertical you wont need the same type pump(jet pump) as pumping from a deep well. You can pump what you need pretty cheaply.

We water rice out of our pond, but here is my info just for a reference. We have only shut ours off for 3 days in the past two months, and this has been a relatively wet year. It pumps 1500 gpm and will add 2 inches of water a day into our 37 acre pond. It's a 50hp submergible motor. And it runs around $125 a day. That's pretty cheap when compared to our diesels that burn over a 100 gallons a day.