Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction Please allow me to introduce myself...

Hi Everyone, my name is Dan and I reside on a small 3 acre farm property in Pennsylvania. My wife and I have been discussing digging a pond in our backyard...mainly for recreation, and possibly to assist in watering the huge garden we're planning behind our barn. Also maybe stock it with some fish, but that's not extremely important...to be 100% honest I really want to be able to swim in the summers, and play ice hockey in the winters. So i've done some preliminary prep and talked to the DEP and the local conservation district, township, etc. and determined that I'm pretty safe permit wise as long as I stay 50 feet away from the creek in my backyard, and keep the pond under 5,000 square feet...which isn't a problem, still plenty of room for me to swim around and ice skate.

I'm fairly certain the soil is decent enough for digging a pond as several of my neighbors have one (I also work at a place where I can have soil testing done so that will be taken care of before I actually start digging.)

I have access to an underground spring which I can feed my pond from in addition to storm water so I have pond fill covered which leads me to my first problem. I'm having trouble finding some good information on pond discharge systems. My very first thought was discharging into the creek, however DEP isn't a huge fan of that one. so are there any other methods out there? What do you guys on here do for discharge or I guess more importantly where do you send the water too when there isn't a creek nearby?

Any help to get me in the right direction would be fantastic, thanks in advance for any help and I look forward to asking tons more questions.

Dan

Look at Pond Dam Piping for several ideas.

Welcome to the forum!

If wanting to swim, and not get nipped by fish, don't stock Bluegill or hybrids. Fathead minnows Yellow Perch, Smallmouth Bass and Redear Sunfish would do well to keep snails, mosquito larvae and leeches in check.

If you don't mind an occasional nip, or like more warm water species, bluegill and largemouth bass are hard to beat!

With a creek close to the overflow, I'd try making a straight through overflow pip have at ;east a 6' drop from pipe to ground, or whatever fish are in the creek will soon be in your pond during any high water/overflow event.