Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Building a dam New pond seepage. Is this normal?

We are talking over a 100 miles both ways St. Louis or Springfield. Every rental place just has flat rollers you put water in. Our local RSC has a 31 inch walk behind vibrating sheepsfoot for $2000 a week. That is way out of budget. My wife is already on edge to fill the money pit in. Can I fill the bed of my S-10 with weight and Run it over repeatedly I'm lost I want this done right this time.

Dirt guy just dropped off his newer loader. No sheepsfoot around so far within 100 miles. He is cutting dam in the morning then start bringing 10 loads of red clay next week for $1000. He says it won't leak this time. I told him 6 inch lifts run over reatedly. Fingers crossed.

Good luck! Keep us posted. My dam has apparently settled enough to seal itself now that I lost a few feet of water from the dry summer. It could also be I don't have enough back-pressure to punch water through any more. I now know though how irritating and stressful leaks can be.

A lot of excavators don't even know what a sheepsfoot roller is -- At least around there. I got some "what" looks when I asked my prospective excavators if they had one.

I am from the camp that you don't absolutely need a sheepsfoot roller. There are ways to build a pond without one. But it takes experience. I know of a few guys that are experienced pond builders and don't use sheepsfoot roller but their equipment allows them to have the same affect.

You have a point. There is between 20 to 30 ponds without dam leaks within a 5 mile radius of us and none used a sheepsfoot to compact their dams. Seen were two ponds are bring built just west of us and no sheepsfoot roller around the sites. Fellow who built ours didn't use one and our two neighbors didn't have one used on compacting their dams.Landfills around use them. Maybe it's just a regional thing when building a dam.

Sheepsfoot roller is insurance that the soils will be compacted to the best ability. Not every one gets or believes in insurance. Good clay soils can be compacted without sheepsfoot rollers. BUT all one has to have is one small vein of sandy or gravelly soil and if not handled properly one gets pathways between clay layers (lifts) for leaks which is why a lot of ponds leak. Water under pressure seeks the path of least resistance and once it finds a pathway the leak volume often increses due to various factors. Do a little searching here and you will discover ALOT of leaky ponds.

He cut straight into leak today. Leak is on left side of dam and traveling ten feet to main leak. 3 leaks in one from spot. Spot 30 feet away a leak can travel through vein like bill said . Bone dry in center core were leake was running outCrazy! Bill willl an 18 inch clay liner fix this! It would save $3500! Watch video from earlier in post and let me know? Thanks.

OK, I got 10, 15 ton loads of clay dumped. Video to come. One load was was purple. First for me. I'm going cheap route seeing I just had my first born child in April. Money running dry! 18" liner.

Best of luck to you. Having a pond built is scary/risky, hopefully this fixes your issue.

Here is a HD video of clay that got hauled in. One load was purple. Never seen clay like that before. He is going to install liner tomorrow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ0vU0hBq...mp;feature=plcp

Your clay looks pretty dry, is that ok? I hope this works for you! Good Luck!!!

We are going to put water to it.

He came and lined pond today and made dam much better. Got more depth now too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4wsuvzWM...mp;feature=plcp

Jwwann, what's the latest?

Waiting for full pool. Dang drought, but water over 12 foot deep and no leaks.

You be fishing and slaying in no time. Good luck.

Great news. Any recent pictures?

Think I took these last month. Pond never froze more than a day with black pond die. That was goal considering I already put a 100 CC and 100 HBG in. Putting in vertex soon. Had money out and ready but it looks like we are getting a tornado shelter next from Missouri Storm Shelters.

But a new Vetex will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine!

Finally got a decent rain yesterday and my dam is not looking even. Could this just be an optical illusion. It looks to me like one side is lower than spillways. I took a panorama picture. What do you all think?

There is a spillway on both ends with one 1 foot higher than other. He used a laser level when making dam. I hope I'm just being paranoid.

It looks like it's lower in the middle.

How long is the dam? Do you have garden hose that's as long as the dam is? You can use the garden hose to make a water level.

I have plenty of garden hose. How does that work?

O.K.. Get fittings to adapt the garden hose ends (both of them) to a barbed fitting. Buy 8'-10' of clear hose that will fit on the barbed fitting. Drive a stake in the ground at each point where you want to measure. Attach a 1x2 to the stake so it's 4'-5' in the air. Cut clear plastic hose in half. Attach it to one end of the hose, and zip tie or bailing wire tie it to one of the stakes. Have the clear plastic start at ground level and go up the whole length of the cut piece.

Stretch hose out to other stake. Hold the end about 3' off of the ground and fill the whole thing with water so it goes up the clear plastic tube that is attached to the stake.

Attach the remaining clear plastic tube to the hose, and while holding the end up in the air so water doesn't run out, attach it to the other stake like you did with the first one.

Measure up from the ground to the water level. If there's not enough water in the hose, add it so you can measure the water level in both clear pieces of tubing. Providing you don't have an air bubble in the hose, the water at each end of the hose will be level with each other. Measure from water line to the ground at each stake. If the measurements are different it's not level.

Or find someone with a laser transit.

I will have to try this if rain doesn't come first. Thanks Esshup.

This has been a very informative thread. I have a similar problem on a new 1.3 acre pond in Austin, TX and have been tossing and turning for a week trying to solve how to repair it. Of course, after it not leaking for 6 weeks, I stocked it with $800 bucks worth of fish only to find a wet area behind the dam three days later. I am searching for a way to repair it without losing all my fish, but after reading this thread, that is appearing highly unlikely. Anybody have a reputable pond repairman to recommend in central Texas?