Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Building a dam Shoot down this idea.

My wife and I have been having a blast grilling and setting around the camp fire on the 1/2 acre pond on the new property.

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=391728#Post391728 http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=391728#Post391728

Two large ravines merge into one, and will be the site of the bigger pond sometime in the future. Another arm off of one of the ravines is begging for another smaller pond. This pond would dump right into the large pond, and would make a great forage pond. A Dam at only 6 or 7 feet and 15 long is going to back up almost a half acre. I would like to use this pond as a blue gill pond now and switch it over to forage only when the big pond is built. Has anyone ever used a bottom drain in a pond that size. My thinking is, 1. i could use it to completely drain the pond when I switch it to forage only and 2. could just drain the forage into the large pond to transfer. Thoughts? Ideas? Would u try it?

Crazy,

Several people here on the forum have ponds like that. TJ specifically.

A forage pond like that is on the list when we build a bigger lake at my families property.

Some day I will be looking for a place south and when this happens I would really like to have a three or at least a two tier pond system.

The biggest and most abundant walleye pond I have ever heard of had perch above and walleye below. The out flow upper pond had special sized grates for the young perch to over flow into the walleye pond. Same as the minnow pond that flowed into the perch pond.

This would be my retirement dream well and good golf courses in the area too.

Cheers Don.

Im trying to wrap my head around, how the drain would work in a forest enviroment. How to keep the leaves out of the drain. And putting in the keyway? Would you put drain through keyway or on top?

Crazy,

If it weren't for crazy ideas, then I probably wouldn't have any ideas

Try going to the search function and entering "pond dam piping" under a keyword search (make sure you use the quotes).

This will direct you to lots of threads that discuss a siphon drain system. This may be a perfect application for your pond. The siphon drain allows you to drain the pond when needed. It also allows you to pull off the bad "bottom water" as rains add some water to your pond level. Finally, changing the siphon level will also allow you control of the surface level of your pond.

Draining the pond water from the bottom will also help alleviate the debris problem you encounter in a forest pond. (You will have to be careful to keep leaves out of the siphon, but that is an easier problem.)

Best wishes - Rod

Crazy,

A big concern with small ponds in small ravines is big rains. If the watershed area above your pond has any significant size, then even a moderate rain can supply more water than the capacity of your pond.

[/b][/u]If water goes over your little dam, then it will almost certainly take out your dam.[u][b] It is money well spent to size your emergency spillway to pass a 100-year rain so you do not have to rebuild your dam.

What is the area of your watershed? Is it mostly forest, grassland, or rocks? This will help you calculate how much water you will get from a big rain.

Finally, if the dam does wash out on your little pond, there is a good chance the surge of water and debris would also take out the dam on your lower "big" pond.

Despite all of my "dire warnings", I still think this pond is a good idea for your intended uses. You just need to plan appropriately before you start spending money on the project.

Good luck - Rod

Crazy, feel free to reach out and I can explain how I engineered a pond as you are considering. Works great, best thing I have ever conceived - with help from the forum, of course. I strongly encourage you to pursue this plan - mini ponds for forage, growout, reproduction or fishery experiments are a load of fun and very useful. When they are connected to your primary pond with a gate valve it enables one person to perform all labor necessary without seines, nets, pumps, etc. Allow a little ingenuity and gravity to perform the labor for you!

TJ,

You are familiar with some of the stuff I am trying to do. Any ideas on how to get a gate valve to work between two water table ponds? I've been scratching my head on that little problem for a while now.

Bill D.

One has to be lower in elevation. Agridrain level controls work the same way - again, however, you need a change in elevation. If that's not possible, you can dig a pit below the gate valve tube [like I have done] and collect fish in a horse tank. Somewhere on the forum I provided a video and photos of this. Works like a charm - few fish get caught on the pond side, but they are easy to walk and collect in buckets following draining.

This is me reaching out. Would love to see how you did yours.




The small red circle is where i would like to put it. It does drain a large area, and spillway would have to be large.