Scott, are you thinking the angle of the pipe would help water increase it's velocity once it started following along the pipe versus a standpipe situation? I would think that could make a big difference once a leak started.
No just the opposite. Well, sort of. I think a standpipe helps pack the water into the horizontal pipe by the large vertical fall before going horizontal. A standpipe can also have a sort of collar on it so it takes water from the bottom of the pond..... The collar is above the top of the highest water level, and extends down to near the bottom of the pond where the horizontal pipe goes thru the dam. The area of the gap between the collar and the pipe is equal to or larger than the drain pipe. The inner stand pipe sets the desired water level of the pond. If the water in the pond is higher than that, then the water that goes into the overflow pipe comes from near the bottom of the pond, or at least the level of where the pipe goes thru the dam.
With the way the OP had the pipe thru the dam, the pipe had to be completely covered with water before it would act as a siphon. Without an anti-vortex device, it most likely wasn't as effecient as it could have been.
Interesting read on the alternative to a collar. Never knew that.
Believe it or not I got rid of a drain pipe in my dike years ago. My contractor skipped a collar and I had a leak around the pipe.
I have a stone lined overflow (same as emergency overflow) solely for my overflow, which feeds into a concrete opening with a pipe that is close to the surface of the ground that dumps into a highway ditch. I did have a problem with water coming out of the dike near the pipe, but it was five star moles boring about 3 feet below the surface of the dike from the emergency flow parallel to the surface all the way to the ditch. A concrete collar down below their boring took care of that.
Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 02/05/1406:14 AM.
If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.
Scott, are you thinking the angle of the pipe would help water increase it's velocity once it started following along the pipe versus a standpipe situation? I would think that could make a big difference once a leak started.
No just the opposite. Well, sort of. I think a standpipe helps pack the water into the horizontal pipe by the large vertical fall before going horizontal. A standpipe can also have a sort of collar on it so it takes water from the bottom of the pond..... The collar is above the top of the highest water level, and extends down to near the bottom of the pond where the horizontal pipe goes thru the dam. The area of the gap between the collar and the pipe is equal to or larger than the drain pipe. The inner stand pipe sets the desired water level of the pond. If the water in the pond is higher than that, then the water that goes into the overflow pipe comes from near the bottom of the pond, or at least the level of where the pipe goes thru the dam.
With the way the OP had the pipe thru the dam, the pipe had to be completely covered with water before it would act as a siphon. Without an anti-vortex device, it most likely wasn't as effecient as it could have been.
Ok. I see what you are getting at. The two of us are actually talking about different things. You are talking about the pressure inside the pipe, and getting the maximum flow thru the pipe. My reference was to a leak following the outside surface of the pipe, and what would cause a leak in that area and why it might deteriorate so quickly once it started.
I don't think the problem in this case was from the pipe size being to small or not having maximum flow thru the pipe. The water level never rose enough to get close to his spillway to indicate this. Perhaps a vortex around the pipe might have washed away the dirt within it's vicinity before it could rise to his spillway level. Possibly a vortex was caused by not having a standpipe or by the pallet stuck at the pipe's opening, can't rule that out. BUT, would that vortex have kept eating away at that soil around the pipe 5, 10, or 15 feet down the length of the pipe? Once you get outside the vortex's range, the dirt should have been sufficiently packed around the pipe to prevent a leak.
edit: I will also add a simple farmer's common sense approach and question to this. If the pallet got stuck at the pipe, blocking it's flow capacity and creating a vortex, wouldn't that vortex be smaller than when/if the pipe would be fully open and flowing???
FNC, I agree with you. I think the failure was due to water following along the outside of the pipe, and relatively quickly eating away the dirt. It's hard to determine exactly what happened, but I'd guess that the soil wasn't compacted properly around the pipe, water followed the outside of the pipe thru the dam and the water flow kept increasing.
Vortex or no vortex, the water should have stayed in the pond until it reached the emergency overflow and exited that way.
Bit of an update. Ice is off the pond finally. No fish kill, but it wasn't likely. Brand new water, 1-3" fish, no vegetation, plenty of depth. We got up to 5" thick ice, but I kept draining water and breaking up the ice every couple weeks, so snow never built up even with the 50-60" we got. I was very pleased with the color of water.
Visibility is 2-3' and a decent green tint I think. All the suspended clay seems to have settled out. IR thermo says 55F at surface.
Talked to the builder. They've agreed to come back and rebuild the dam when the soil is workable. They will put in two 4x4' anti-seep collars. They will use the track-hoe bucket to properly compact along the length of the pipe and the collars. They wouldn't admit putting the pipe in solely with the dozer was wrong, but they will do it different this time so I'll take that. They didn't want me to rent a mechanical tamper and get in their way. They'll let me tamp the tar out of the soil at the inlet. Weren't interested in a trash guard- said it would plug the pipe faster. I tried to talk them into even Tposts a foot or two out to keep big branches away. They are still claiming that a pallet blocked the 12" dia pipe inlet and some swirling water ate away surrounding soil.. but don't want an anti-vortex on inlet.. nobody in the county I've told their tale believes it.
Been feeding by hand a bit in the evening. They won't come feed at 2pm. They come up around 6pm and eat for 30-45 min. Using Purina Game Fish Chow.. pretty small pellets but they still have to peck it to bits. I enjoy just watching the lil rascals go at it. Already saw a frog in the pond, and plenty of surface bugs.
Quick update. I got a 3/4" rain Friday night with the water level very close to the breach hole in the dam. I had the 2" drain running the whole weekend and it didn't drop water level, but water never came up enough to flow out the breach. I want to avoid breach flow of course. I left the valve partially open as runoff keeps flowing in.
From Weds midnight to Friday, they are predicting 3" more. It has me concerned, so I am going to get a 100' roll of corrugated 4" pipe and put it thru the breach hole. I hope to have a temporary overflow to help the 2" drain. There is an earthen bridge across the breach as there was a good bit of freeboard designed in. Soil has dropped from the underside of that bridge and mounded up, so I am leery about hand digging a trench thru. Just trying to find more ways to unload water without cutting more soil away.
Anyone ever successfully do a siphon going 5-6' above water level with flexible pipe? I'll be doing this alone, so can't get too fancy but thinking about trying. You can't seal seams (on a T) well, so may cap the bottom end and try to fill it from the pond entry up on top of dam, then pull it down to water level and uncap back end.
I have the fabric sleeve left over from the french drain project, so thinking 10' of perforated pipe and sock over the last 12', tied off at the end.. should prevent fish intake.
We got another large rain Wed-Fri. This is Thurs after I lost more of the dam.
I put in 2x 6" and one 4" corrugated pipe to pull water out of the pond and not have it cutting the breach. Yes, you can get it going solo.. use a ladder and put the pipe thru the top rung on the downstream side, then fill and lift the inlet side to shove water down the chute (8-12x) and fill- put inlet in pond and go drop the exit end.
Then I shoveled soil over them to create a mini-dam at their high-point. Hopefully, they'll flow before water cuts out that new soil... and keep up. Due to rain again Mon/Tues
Last edited by DNickolaus; 04/06/1410:07 PM. Reason: get video to work
Was the last pic taken after or before the water was flowing thru those pipes?
In the past, I have seen members here put plastic sheeting down in there spillway overflow area to help keep the erosion down because of heavy rains that were coming before they could get grass growing. I think one of the secrets to get that to work is to get the plastic edge down under the water level and weight it so the water just don't go underneath it.
Last photo was after pond was drawn down a bit by running 3 corrugated pipes and the 2" drain over the weekend. The 3 pipes were in place and dirt piled on top of them at their high spot to hopefully flow water thru pipes and not the breach.
Only the deepest inlet 6" pipe was flowing when the shot was taken.. the water level had gone below the inlet on the other two. Before I mounded soil, I pulled them a little further and stuck their ends underwater again. After discussion with the other engineers at work today, we think the inlet level isn't as important to re-establishing flow as the high point for each pipe.
Not a bad idea to put plastic sheeting over that mini-dam to minimize erosion. Would make sense to tuck the leading edge down under the soil. All tips welcomed!
Yessir. The areas are the same. I'd think a 6" would/could flow more as the 4x3"dia pipes have double the wall surface, and especially with corrugated pipe, the friction losses are significant. Were you suggesting lotta little pipes be better?
The 2" drain was flowing more than the 6" corrugated, but that drain comes off the bottom of the pond under pressure. I didn't feel I ever got the 6" pipes into a solid siphon like the 4".. you can see the difference in how full the exit dia is and velocity coming out. The corrugated pipes all ran the same elevation drop. But they all rose above the water level going over the hump, so there was some kind of siphon. As everyone says, it all depends.
The 2" drain was put in with the pond. I went down with a 100' roll of 4". I saw it wasn't enough, as you can clearly see in the video. So I went to town and bought a roll of 6". It was coming down, then I heard they predicted rain again today and I spooked and went and bought another 6". In the absence of my properly installed 12" overflow, I do the best I can on my own.
News: The dam is back intact. It was a struggle to get them to do anything different, but they agreed to install two 4'x4' anti-seep collars and the whole pipe length plus around collars compacted with the bucket on the track hoe. The pipe inlet sticks out from the pond side now. Couldn't convince them to put a trash guard on it. "any blockage on the inlet would just make it gather trash rather than flow through and it will plug faster" Any suggestions on how I can build some protection around the inlet later are welcomed. Thought about just some Tposts a couple feet out in an arc.
Only about 3-4' of water left.. few fish remain. Most of my forage critters are gone. So now I need to decide how long to wait to restock forage fish. Wait until it fills and the pipe flows and stays? Wait a couple months of rains after that? You can understand how I'm a bit gun shy, but I hate to lose the growing season.
Outlet side
Pond side.
They moved the emergency spillway further to the right. It's far enough over now that a good portion of it is bedrock. Don't think they intend that to wash out. I threw grass seed on it anyway.
I thought the emergency spillway looked close as well. It's about a foot above, and around the corner a little where it starts. The profile does dip down into the pond and looks like it starts at full pool, doesn't it.
Yes, the S side slope does have some exposed bedrock. I don't walk along there as it's damp much of the time.
Any thoughts on when to restock forage fish? Not a huge deal to run back to Cinci, but having lost a bunch of the first batch, hate weighing the risk of further losses. Wouldn't want to put them into as little water as it has now, but it'll get 8' within a month I'd bet.
Agreed. FHM now, but I'd wait to see if it holds water before putting a lot of $$ into stocking the pond. The exposed rock bothers me, especially if it's "wet" all the time.
The official rainfall total last week was 1.6".. on Monday. Water is still flowing in slowly. But, how do you put appx 5' of water in there in a week? You can see the similar picture from a week ago up a few posts. Just amazing.
Since my dam builder refused to put on a trash rack, I built my own. Those are 6' Tposts sunk 3' in. I set them all so their top is 1" over the top of the pipe, in an arc 24" out from the inlet. Put mesh from 12" below full pool up to the top. There is more area below the mesh than pipe area, plus the sides are open for now. Even if mesh is totally clogged, water can still get out. I added the nylon rope for strength if there's a lot of thrust from water flow. May put in wire mesh later, but that's what I had on hand.
Planning another road trip to Jones Fish early Saturday morning. At their door when they open, get my shiners and fatheads, and drive while it's cool.
My builder says he wants 50% of the original dam price for the repair. Talked to two other contractors- both say the dam failure was not caused by my pallet that ended up in the breach. One suggested giving my builder 10% of what he asked and the other suggested 40%, just to be honorable and get him off my back.
Oh, and I dropped by Sprkplug's and enjoyed meeting him and seeing his lovely ponds. My first PB'er face-to-face.
Looks good! You might want to have the posts and mesh higher than that. If the pond water is higher than the fence, it won't do much good.
Now you see why we are concerned about the emergency overflow. Just think how much water would be there if you had 6" or 12" of rain in 24 hrs like what happened when Hurricane Ike came thru a few years ago??
That looks good to me. Good luck with the forage stocking, remember to sort them thoroughly before turning them out into the pond!
Enjoyed our visit, I'm glad I got to meet you and talk ponds for a few minutes.....looking forward to seeing yours also!
Did you get what you went after down in Newberry???
"Forget pounds and ounces, I'm figuring displacement!"
If we accept that: MBG(+)FGSF(=)HBG(F1) And we surmise that: BG(>)HBG(F1) while GSF(<)HBG(F1) Would it hold true that: HBG(F1)(+)AM500(x)q.d.(=)1.5lbGRWT? PB answer: It depends.
Stocked FHM & GSH from Jones again. Moved every FHM from one bucket to the next to check em. I only tossed 10 or so that I wasn't sure of. Wasn't sure what was up with some with a reddish brown spot on top of their head. As Esshup said, they seem to do a good job keeping their lot clean. Next day, I had a few up and pecking on AQ4000. Lotta green in the water, so they should be happy.
There are tadpoles everywhere along the shore, and quite the chorus at night. Was a little surprised to see they are carnivorous or at least carrion eaters.
Tadpoles like GSH
About 18" left to full pool. Forage fish spawning grounds are under water if they get in the mood. Another inch of rain forecast for this week, so it'll be closer to gut-check time on the overflow.
"Forget pounds and ounces, I'm figuring displacement!"
If we accept that: MBG(+)FGSF(=)HBG(F1) And we surmise that: BG(>)HBG(F1) while GSF(<)HBG(F1) Would it hold true that: HBG(F1)(+)AM500(x)q.d.(=)1.5lbGRWT? PB answer: It depends.
