Six years we needed dirt to build a pad for our new house. Instead of bringing in clay via dump truck, I had an excavation company dig me a small .20 acre pond. We stocked it a year later and it has produced several 2.5 pound bass over the years. I knew the pond was too small to produce anything much larger so this year I am having a 3 stall garage built and using more dirt to build another pad. After the dirt is dug out with an excavator, I am planning on using a dozer to finish and carve me out a .75 pond. It will sit adjacent to the first small pond until the second ones fills up, then I plan on bridging both into one pond. This should make a one acre surface area pond.

I had two choices on equipment, a D5H at $125 an hour or a D65 komatsu dozer at $150. I chose the Komatsu as it was bigger dirt mover but lacked grading the slopes as compared to the D5H. Hopefully I chose correctly. The dozer driver is planning on starting tomorrow.

I have to see how far my money will run, but as of now I am planning on having the pond average 6 feet deep with the shallow end being 3-4 feet and a couple 10 feet trenches. I see no need to dig any deeper as this will not be a dam build pond and it will cost me a fortune to dig something twice as deep. It will be a watershed filled pond with a small spillway already in place in the first pond. 3 sides will be shaded by large trees so it should limit the evaporation problem we have this far south, especially in a shallow pond. The advantage of being so far south - I do not have to worry about the pond freezing over or having a large fish kill due to sub 0 temps.

I have a couple questions to ask you experts:

1. Anybody have any experience of expanding or combining two ponds?
2. Would you prefer a deeper or larger pond?
3. Does $150 per hour for large dozer seem fair?
4. For weed control, how deep would you plan on making the edge of the banks?
5. Would you put large tree truck root balls in the pond for fish habitats?

I should have some pictures as the project begins in the next few days.

Thanks, Jack