Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? Renovating an exsisting pond.

Welcome to the forum family, lots of information to read and absorb. Lots of smart folks here to help . Someone with dirt smart will answer your questions , you might tell them how big your pond is and what your goals are

Dig to the depth you need, first. Depth should be based on storage capacity you want, depending on your water source. If you're pumping from the river, or have a well, depth isn't as important. If you depend strictly on runoff from rainfall, you'll need enough depth the pond won't go dry. Compare average annual rainfall to evaporation rates. That determines depth.
Then, be sure to line the bottom of the pond with at least 12" of heavily compacted clay, preferably 18" so animal hooves won't penetrate through your clay layer.

Looking good!

Two suggestions:

First, check soil & water alkalinity. You may need to put down lime, and it is cheaper to do it now than when BOW is full of water.

Second, some fish habitat.

Was that ag lime in the bags or hydrated lime in the pond bottom?

What is the best way to check soil alkalinity?

Can fish habitat be added after we find out if our efforts were successful?

Don't know about soil, perhaps others here do.

If you have well water or other water source for it, you can send a sample to Texas A&M for analysis. That's what I did & how I found out needed ag lime (though I underestimated how much!).

As for habitat, that's entirely up to you. I had some done, but not nearly what I should have. In my case, timber & rock. But it wasn't adequate, needed a lot more brush to help YOY fish hide.

Only reason I mentioned it is that it is much easier to place before the pond fills up.

Just looking at the shape of your future BOW, I'd think placing habitat in the corners might be smart. Fish like a break in the routine, and I've always found such spots productive.

Best of luck! It's a great adventure...

Sergio, look for TAMU soil test lab. They have the directions on what to do.

If it's the same soils sample test as the ones used for food plots then I had one done last year. The Ph according to that test was 5.3.
What would be the adequate Ph for soils to be adaptable for fish?

Sounds very much like my soil.

In your shoes, I'd work in 4 or 5 tons of ag lime per acre and disc it. (In a 1/4 to 1/3 acre BOW, that might be 1.5 to 2 tons.) I did the first part, but not the second, and have regretted it ever since.

Also, you could consider ag liming the watershed, though not at that level. Again, something I failed to do & wish I had.

I doubt that a cultipacker will compact the soil enough.... That's usually only used to firm up seed beds after planting.

I'm with esshup on that, we used those in soybean and corn fields. It was great at breaking up balls and clumps left from the disk and would form a then crust on top that would help preserve moisture before planting. It would not pack over a 1/2 to 1". Your moisture would have to be almost perfect to get 1" I would say. They work a lot like a dozer track. The weight is really spread out.

If I was in your shoes at the stage you are at I would find a sheepsfoot roller and I'd be on it as much as possible. Every chance I got I'd be driving it around. I wish I would have found this site and built our pond correctly as so many others have stated on the site...but to far in now to fix anything.

Looks great by the way!!

I know what you mean about using what you have. That is what we have to do most of the time. We ended up putting 4 18wheeler brake drums on a 5' box blade, and filling the bucket of the tractor up and going over and over and over our pond trying to pack it the best we could. This after it had gone dry numerous times and had an uncle try a few things with his trackhoe. It now seeps very little. 1/2" a day last year. I think we are around the 1/4" a day this year. We could not afford much bentonite or soilfloc. Had an old timer tell us many in this area has sealed a pond with hay. I had some rolls left over from last year, we rolled some into the pond, I also covered my gravel banks with it so grass would grow. I had my doubts, but we are losing less now than ever before, I have grass on my banks and well, quite a bit of algae. But I can battle algae if I can keep water. Sometimes working with what you have is all you can do. Hope you keep the pics coming. Love build threads!