Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help How to deepen a small pond?

Have a small pond in the backyard, about 30 ft across. It appears to be spring fed, our best guess is that someone dug out a spring years ago to make the pond. Nothing flows in, but about 10 to 30 gpm range flows out, and the pond does not freeze over in winter. This is in Northern Utah, all other water in the area does freeze.

Problem is it’s not very deep, mostly less than 2 ft with a small area up to 4 feet and only a foot or so in the middle. It may have originally been dug with a backhoe that couldn't reach the center very well. The bottom is mostly sand with some organic sedimentation on top.

We’d like to get the sediment out and deepen the pond to 4 or 5 feet in the center. We have asked some local backhoe guys for estimates but no one has gotten back to us.

It occurs to me some kind of dredge pump could be used to suck the sediment and sand out. Does anyone have any experience with this? What kind and size pump would you use?

It looks to me that something like what I have seen on Bering Sea Gold would be sufficient. If a smaller trash pump would work we could probably buy one for no more than hiring a backhoe. If it was our own pump we could do it slowly over time. We would have to lift the water and sediment about 5 feet above pond surface and then pipe it 30 feet or so to discharge.

I have a very similar situation , which I have recently posted about. My pond is a little bigger but the same problem. I use a 3 in trash pump to stir the living S$$$ out of it and muck it manual labor. It seems to be working pretty well.

Thanks Cody, are you able to get sand out along with the muck?

We have more sand than muck to remove.

Are there any laws/regulations impacting what can be done with this. Each state/county is different. I wouldn't want to say that you can do something, and get you in trouble.

If there is sand, I doubt you would be happy with the results of an ordinary trash pump. Sure, it picks up muck that is stirred up with water, but sand is heavy and settles fast. There are pumps that can handle it, but from what I have seen, they are pricy.

Keep trying to get some quotes. It may start answering a lot of the questions you have, and probably will also bring up a lot more.

Is your soil sand, clay or other? If you got a nice spring coming out, and with deepening that spot a bit, you might have yourself a nice year-round trout pond!

Thanks FnC

It's sand, with a little gravel. I suspect that is why we have a spring, most of the soil in the area is clay we have a sand lens outcrop.

I appreciate the advice on the trash pump, no use putting time and $ into something that won't work.

You will remove the sand but you have to get it soupy enough, to suck through, stones and what will depend on the type and size if pump you are using.