Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help Leaking pond

pond pictures and thoughts

Had this pond built by a friend of mine... (first mistake)
paid by the hour (second mistake)

we have approximately 7 acres of water shedable land that I was hoping would be sufficent to supply water to pond during rains. and as you can see in the pictures it filled up nicely during a down pour in february of this year however most of the ground was water logged and frozen so the rain shed into pond very readily. since that rain a pretty large hole opened up in the side wall of the pond and then i noticed a small drop in level of about 1/2" per day.
I dug out the large hole and repacked with bentonite natural clay mix and repacked the surrounding area good. The slow leak has seemed to stop naturally with the use of ducks crapping in the water, However this spring we had an unusually low rain fall totals and extremely hot dry spells. Some of the grass seed and weed seed made their way into the shallow edges of my pond area and are growing nicely in the clay... Its tough to get a mower down into the bottom to keep them down.
Should i just weed whack them until the pond fills or can i chemically remove them if I'm not planning on stocking this year?

I have two options for filling the pond one is expensive but will fill it up fast the other is questionable but probably my better option long term if it works seeing what your all thoughts may be .

Option 1) major creek at bottom of property, 60' elevation change and 520' of run. thinking of renting big trash pump and pumping it full. weekly rental is looking to be approx $500

Option 2) Neighbor had a fence installed and hired a utility line locator to ensure post didnt rupture my water line. He told her that while he was marking the lines his dowsing rod(?) found what he claimed to be a cavern full of water at the top of our property only about 5' below the surface. if that is the case that would be at a higher elevation than the pond and possibly be a good thing to tap into to resupply my ponds water.

Anyone with any insight into my best course of action it would be greatly appreciated. Ive never had a well dug not sure how much it would cost or if it would be worth it. cant really tell if pond is leaking currently or not as we loose about1/4 inch a week and I'm assuming its due to evaporation. Usually catches right back up each rain we get at this point

Welcome to the forum, Rooster, we're glad you found us.

I own 7 ponds and each one has leaked to some degree or another, so I became unwillingly experienced with sealing ponds. Feel free to reach out anytime and I'm happy to help provide some direction based on my experiences.

TJ

tj@hudlandmgmt.com

I figured debris and sediment mixed with duck crap would fix the slow leaks over time the big leak I wrote about in main post took pond level down about 50%. really feel like i need water in the pond to move forward but I'm getting impatient with the lack of rain

While painful, if you can drain the pond and have the dam cored properly along with sealing up the bottom, in the long term, this will likely be the least costly and most satisfying solution. I built my last pond (1/2 acre) last summer and used a sheep's foot roller on 6-8" lifts in the dam core and throughout the pond bottom. I have a couple acres of watershed, but even in the moderate drought we had earlier this summer, the pond only went down 3". This is my 3rd pond and have also added a half dozen wetlands. My last wetland is larger than its watershed and has not even come close to going dry. The wetland build on my land as a mitigation by INDOT, goes dry every summer in spite of a large watershed, but still provides great wildlife habitat. The difference is that they did not core the berm properly. I actually installed a bottom drain in my last pond in case my pond leaked and I needed to drain it and reseal. Now I need to disconnect the cable on the valve from the floats and drop it to the pond bottom.

any tips on what to do on grasses and weeds growing into pond floor in chemical control or mechanical only?

I'm no pro, but everything I've read, and I was told to seed my whole pond and get as much growing as I could before it filled with water. It would help jump start the life in the pond and help with erosion control. I wouldn't worry about removing it.