Hello, I have been doing some research on ponds recently and would like to get your advise on this possible pond move I am considering. You can see the attached sketch to get an idea of the proposed move.
I just bought a 3 acre piece of land I will be building my future home on. I will need to fill in the existing pond in order to build the home. I would like to move the pond to the rear of the property and make it approx 1/3 acre in size. The existing pond is about .55 acres and the seller tells he me has approx 2500lbs of fish stocked. He also has a 90' water well with a 6000 Gallon pump used to fill the original pond I can move to fill the new pond.
Here are my questions I have below:
1) What is the best way to plan this pond move and approx cost? All the dirt used to dig the original pond is banked. Do I need to get a permit before construction begins on the new pond?
2) I have a drainage area slope where I will be building the pond. I want to take my neighbours into consideration and do not want to flood their property, what is the best solution to this?
3) I want to move the maximum amount of fish over to the new pond, how many lbs. can survive in a 1/3 acre pond approx 10' deep (should I go deeper?) I do plan on regular feeding and aeration.
4) How would I move the fish over?
Thanks in advance for your help with this project.
Welcome to the forum! I might be able to help a bit, but I really think you need to talk to a soils engineer to make sure that the new house won't crack apart. What you will be doing is building it on fill, and the fill needs to be properly compacted before any building can be done. Talk to your dirt guys. It might be cheaper to fill in the existing pond as the new pond is dug vs. stockpiling the dirt from the new pond, transferring some of the fish to the new pond, then filling in the old pond.
I knew of a few houses in California that were partially built on fill, and the remainder of the house was on virgin soil. The houses ended up cracking both the slab and the walls where the fill/virgin soil met.
I agree with esshup. I am not an engineer, but I have seen ponds drained before, and have witnessed some of the results. I don't know what kind of soil you are dealing with, but here in N.W. Missouri, we have alot of clay and clay silt loam type.When a pond has been allowed to fill, and saturate the ground, you will likely be dealing with a soup, that will take along time to dry,(sometimes 2-3 years) making it difficult for common earth moving equipment, to even get in and remove the saturated soil. Then as esshup says, you will not know the quality of your foundation strata.
I have seen houses in my area, that builders went and turned less than desirable land, and turned into sub-divisions, using the fill technic, and wow, concrete and foundation issues have turned peoples dream homes into nightmares.
Looks like you already have a well established body of water, and I by no means am telling you what to do, but I would weigh all options before embarking on your above idea. I guess the main consideration is your operating budget,what you want to do can be done, but may possibly end up costing more than you want to spend.
Welcome to the site! As you probably already know, there is a plethora of valuable information here.
Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat and drink beer.
Thank you very much for your replies. Yes we do not plan on building for another 2 years so we wanted to get this project under way as soon as possible so the soil has time to settle. In addition to that we will be building our slab on piers to withstand any additional soil settling.
The main concern though is the current project we are about to embark on and the actual movement and creation of the new pond.
