Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations water losses in december

i know everyone is in different climates, but i was curious as to what kind of water losses you all are seeing this time of the year? i installed a pump here a few months ago. i got mine to full pull. i disconnected it thanksgiving day, we had about 7 inches or so of rain in the last month. i am still loosing a little water each day, maybe a quarter inch. pond will drop a few inches and then we get rain and it fills back to full pool. curious what type evaporation yall are seeing? my feeder stream is running, but barely. i have no idea how long it will take us to recover from the drought we experienced this year. i guess my water is soaking back in to the bank. pond was sealed with soil floc and made a huge difference for the better.

Scott, the summer drought at my place had the pond down a couple of feet, would have been more but ran the water well some. As my pond comes up from late Nov rain the soil continues to take some water when it rises, even after the pond is two yr old. It is taking less water now because the aerator is off and the 95 degree days are gone. My pond looks stable at this time but it still takes a little water every day from a combination seepage and I see fog over the pond on some days. And I have been told and have read all ponds leak, some worse than others. Hope yours becomes stable for you.

Scott we are locked up in NE so we only see seepage, so I can't help much. I know evaporation rates are accelerated during warm temps, dry air, and windy conditions. Your temps are probably helping, but no clue on the other two factors down your way. Have you tried a bucket test just to see what you're losing daily? They won't be comparable as a pond will always evaporate faster, but at least provides a starting point for your empirical data.

tj- i haven't tried a bucket test lately. my visible leak that you assisted with in 2015 is still gone. no water at all behind the dam. not even damp!! soil floc worked!! i do see water wicking up around the pond edges. we just haven't had good rain in the grass growing season to allow me to get full grass coverage. if the ground was covered with grass i doubt i would see it. it seems the wicking is most noticeable when i am at full pool. the walking area around the pond is graded flat and is about 1 ft above fool pool in most areas. that is where i see the most wicking. the dam is 3 ft higher than full pool and so are a few other areas. i never notice wicking in the higher places.

reckon i should treat the edges with soil floc or would there be enough pressure and seepage to make it fill the pores?

Here in Ontario it depends on ice cover. We are now 90% ice cover with just the two 10 foot holes from the air stations.

I run our fill pump non stop all winter long. Its around 5000 gallons per hour in a 2" and run it in over the waterfall. The front face of the waterfall will freeze but the water is running in behind the ice. The flow keeps the over flow from freezing as well. This gives us a good water change every year with the pond only about 1 million gallons.

The one year I didn't run the fill pump to keep the water level stable it was harder on the floating dock and the waterfall. It is best for us to keep the level stable over the winter.

Cheers Don.

We have a 6 inch thick cap of ice, so any loss we have would be leakage. This time of year we have more gain than loss, and get topped off with outflow. It took an extram month this year to get to that point, and still in drought.
Side note: This is the earliest we have had a skatable pond since we owned it. About as thick as our ice gets.

i went on vacation thru the holidays, when i got back the pond was a few inches below full pool. withing a day or 2 we had about 7 inches of rain and some of it was fast and hard rains. one night the pond got about 15" above full pool. it was about to go over emergency spillway. the main pipe was carrying at full capacity. it is a 10" horizontal pipe with a 12" horizontal riser. i have a 4 inch pipe running thru the dam with a valve on the dry side of the dam. i opened it that night just to keep water from going over the earthen-ed emergency spillway. pond is only a few years old and we still don't have 100 percent grass coverage here. i just haven't had enough rain in the grass growing season.

right now i am at full pool with good flow thru. i hope she stays full now till next summer- full forever would be nice , but that's not going to happen without the assistance from my new pump.

i would recommend adding that second pipe like i have thru the dam if anyone is ever going to build another dam. it makes it so easy to release water from the pond. i do it in the summer just to get some of the bad water off the bottom. it usually smells like sewage. i don't have aeration.

After one good rain, drought has resumed here. D2 (severe drought) according to the U.S. drought monitor.

We are D3-D4. Temps have cooled off but dry winds have picked up. WE are supposed too have 20-50mph winds all week, BUT rain in FINALLY in the forecast for this weekend! I think I'm down about 7" for December. 2.5-3 foot low.