Pond Boss Magazine
https://www.pondboss.com/images/userfiles/image/20130301193901_6_150by50orangewhyshouldsubscribejpeg.jpg
Advertisment
Newest Members
Shotgun01, Dan H, Stipker, LunkerHunt23, Jeanjules
18,451 Registered Users
Forum Statistics
Forums36
Topics40,902
Posts557,113
Members18,452
Most Online3,612
Jan 10th, 2023
Top Posters
esshup 28,417
ewest 21,475
Cecil Baird1 20,043
Bill Cody 15,112
Who's Online Now
1 members (Boondoggle), 650 guests, and 149 robots.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Joined: Sep 2018
Posts: 7
S
Skeer Offline OP
OP Offline
S
Joined: Sep 2018
Posts: 7
Ok so I have 2 ponds; 1 is about 100'x40' at it's widest. The second and smaller one is roughly 30' across and circular. They are divided by a thin strip of land and teh larger one is a couple feet above the smaller one in elevation.

They are run-off fed, which is the first of my problems with it, second major issue is that they've never been cleaned. There's half a dozen white pines and 2 humongous weeping willows within spitting distance.

I know how bad willows are for a pond but they're both an easy 150' tall and beautiful so there's no way we'd cut them down. Anyway there's a measurable layer of old needles and leaves towards one end of the big pond as witnessed a couple weeks ago when it was bone dry.

Now my plan is, and please point out any problems with this, is to hire a local good ol boy with a backhoe to dig out a couple feet in the deeper end. Remove as much pine needles and willow leaves as can be. Now our grans here is extremely sandy, and the water table is rather high.. say in the neighborhood of 12-15ft. So the thought is that I could give down about that far and let the water seep in. It might not fill the pond but keep some level in there.

Thoughts? Please Im here to be educated so don't hold any punches lol.

Joined: May 2013
Posts: 2,892
Likes: 144
C
Offline
C
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 2,892
Likes: 144
Skeer, Welcome to the forum again! I'm not an expert on digging ponds but I can share what little I know.

We would love to see pictures so we can better understand the layout of your ponds and how the elevations work. Knowing what the soil is like would help too.

But assuming it is a typical groundwater pond then my advice,e were it my pond, would be to do some preliminary planning before getting the excavating equipment there. If you are going to have them onsite, it would make sense to dig out as much muck as they can. If they are there, and can reach it, it would be ideal if they can muck out much of both ponds or at least as far as they can reach.

You would have to have a plan for where to put the dirt and it would make sense to pump down the ponds and let them dry as much as you can of the pond bottoms ahead of time to not have to deal with wet slimy muck.

I would also say if they are digging you might as well consider ways to get a better 'seal' of the bottom. That would help you down the road with less water fluctuations and less need to want to pump up the level of the pond.

I'll post a long series of posts about soilfloc, a polymer product that may help you. It won't be perfect in sandy soil but with my experience it helped a lot. The time to do it would be ideally after a recent cleanout. This means the debris and leaves would be gone and the sealer polymer could go right into the gravel/sand veins and start sealing them off. If there is organic stuff on top of the sand then the sealer can't get to it.

It seals better when there is a full pool so you would clean out, then try to fill the pond or wait for rains this fall and then when full apply the sealer.

of course if you are going to seal then you would want the majority or as much as possible cleaned out so you can get a better seal.

OF course we would recommend clearing trees that you can live without as trees equal problems, but on the other hand, if you like the tree then they stay.

A skilled operator with a long reach boom can probably clean out your two ponds very quickly. If they had a chance to be 'bone dry' then a bulldozer could push out the middle/deep zones quickly to the edges and the excavator could move it out of the way.

that would lead to starting with a fresh slate with 2 ponds, you could have awesome possibilities of a forage only pond and a sportfishing pond. Depending on depth and how easy it is for you to pump the pond full when needed you can decide on a stocking strategy. My vote would be to do what I did and decide right now that you are going to be very patient after a pond clean out and work a couple years on building forage. It has been awesome for me with only a few RES and YP and the rest working on building forage.

Here is the old post that documents my initial experience with soilfloc:

Soilfloc thread




Last edited by canyoncreek; 09/18/18 09:56 AM.
Joined: May 2009
Posts: 5,714
Likes: 281
R
RAH Offline
Lunker
Offline
Lunker
R
Joined: May 2009
Posts: 5,714
Likes: 281
Before digging, it would be good to know if you have a groundwater or watershed pond. A groundwater pond will fluctuate with the top of the water table, while a watershed pond has a sealed bottom and fills from surface water (and sometimes springs). If you are in sandy soil and you dig through a clay liner, the pond will drain down to the top of the water table. When you say the water table is 12-15 feet down, do you mean that a hole or well 12-15 feet deep has some water in the bottom, or do you mean that digging a hole that depth fills up close to the original ground level?

Joined: Sep 2018
Posts: 7
S
Skeer Offline OP
OP Offline
S
Joined: Sep 2018
Posts: 7
Thanks guys. Ok so my 12-15ft down I mean testing the current water level in both of our wells that's where it is. And neither well is deeper than 25ft (+-3ft)

The soil is VERY sandy everywhere that I've dug at except for the strip of land between the ponds. It's odd unless man-made, and I have no idea if previous owners built that part or not. I've attached a shoddy paint file. It shows the overall layout. Green are the nearest trees, with teh monsoon-like rains over the past month I had to half-bury an irritation pipe to help drain the upper to the lower. During the next dry spell I'll be laying down some cement and doing an overflow the right way.

I like the idea of possibly doing a fishing pond in the larger one and wildlife on the lower. The lower pond overflows/seeps out into a marshy area roughly 2-3 acres large. Previous owner had multiple ground blinds for deer around that area.

ponds

Joined: May 2009
Posts: 5,714
Likes: 281
R
RAH Offline
Lunker
Offline
Lunker
R
Joined: May 2009
Posts: 5,714
Likes: 281
Based on your description, it seems that it is likely that the ponds are lined with clay. If any digging breaks through the clay lining, then the pond may drain into the aquifer. It might be possible to remove the muck above the clay liner if careful. The dam between the ponds is likely a man-made clay structure as well. I have built shallow duck ponds, wetlands, and vernal pools on my place for the wildlife. You may also enjoy adding plants to these that benefit wildlife. The trees near the dam are of most concern, but if they are large, removal is probably ill advised because decaying roots could form channels for water to leak through.

Joined: Sep 2018
Posts: 7
S
Skeer Offline OP
OP Offline
S
Joined: Sep 2018
Posts: 7
Maybe a test hole is is order? I have not seen whats below the rotting needles and leaves yet.

Joined: May 2013
Posts: 2,892
Likes: 144
C
Offline
C
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 2,892
Likes: 144
If your water table is 12 feet down, and your pond is not deeper than 12 feet then at least there wouldn't be free flow in and out through the water table.

If your pond bottom is not properly compacted clay then there may be percolating water through the pond bottom towards the water level. If you have a way to fill your ponds with a well (do you?) or runoff is adequate then you wouldn't have to stress. You could just clean the unwanted debris, leaves, needles, and let it fill.

Can you measure daily water depth with a mounted steel ruler and see what your water loss is per day or per week?

I'm in the same boat as you. My pond goal was to be at 10' to avoid winter kill. I think at full pool we are just about there, but most of the year it is likely 8' at the deepest. My water table is probably at 15' like yours, but I have at least one vein of sand that the water can get through. My summer loss with trees roots sucking water, evaporation loss, and leak through the bottom was more than an 1" a day.

After prepping the bottom and applying a few applications of soilfloc my losses are way less, maybe 1" a week or less and probably mostly from evaporation and tree roots sucking water. It is acceptable to me.

I can choose to pump my levels up with a well, but usually right when I start pumping then we get a huge rain with runoff that overflows the pond. Probably is better to let it run low in summer to prepare some capacity for fall rains.

Surely draining and digging test holes will tell you more about your core soils.

Joined: Sep 2018
Posts: 7
S
Skeer Offline OP
OP Offline
S
Joined: Sep 2018
Posts: 7
Another Michigander I see smile
No I have no way to fill my pond, but like I mentioned about 3 weeks ago when the big rain started my pond was filled and overflowing. I still need to dig a test hole.. I'd be surprised if there any clay, but I am hopeful.
Over the past three weeks I've lose about 2ft so its possible the composition is not 100% sand.
And I have no real way to drain it either, right now I wish I did as the mosquitoes are driving us nuts.

Joined: May 2009
Posts: 5,714
Likes: 281
R
RAH Offline
Lunker
Offline
Lunker
R
Joined: May 2009
Posts: 5,714
Likes: 281
If you have fish in the pond, I doubt the mosquitoes are coming from the pond.

Joined: Sep 2018
Posts: 7
S
Skeer Offline OP
OP Offline
S
Joined: Sep 2018
Posts: 7
I don't have fish in there.. but that's what I'm trying to alleviate with the perch minnows wink

Joined: May 2009
Posts: 5,714
Likes: 281
R
RAH Offline
Lunker
Offline
Lunker
R
Joined: May 2009
Posts: 5,714
Likes: 281
Even fishless bodies of water (I have several) are really only a mosquito problem when they hold temporary water. My wetlands, even those that occasionally go dry, have enough invertebrate predators to virtually eliminate mosquito larvae. I'd be looking at temporary flooded areas and treeholes, tires, etc. for the source. Foliar pyrethroid sprays near the house can be helpful, but follow label instructions and don't spray blooming plants to protect pollinators.

Joined: Sep 2018
Posts: 7
S
Skeer Offline OP
OP Offline
S
Joined: Sep 2018
Posts: 7
Yeah I've noticed that before in other locations. But here.. I might not have scoured 100% of our property yet. But damn close and I'm positive there's no other sources of stagnant water.

But no on my place its painfully obvious the source.. step outside the house and theres a few, not tons. Walk out to the pond and BOOM you hit this virtual wall of insect. A minute or three later and you start to feel weak from blood loss lol.

Joined: May 2009
Posts: 5,714
Likes: 281
R
RAH Offline
Lunker
Offline
Lunker
R
Joined: May 2009
Posts: 5,714
Likes: 281
Adult mosquitoes will gravitate to food sources which often hang out around ponds. Do you see larvae in the pond? We also get bitten a lot more away from the house in more "natural" habitats like the woods. Common mosquito species feed quite a bit on birds.

Last edited by RAH; 09/23/18 05:24 AM.

Link Copied to Clipboard
Today's Birthdays
cro, HC1968
Recent Posts
Relative weight charts in Excel ? Calculations?
by jpsdad - 03/28/24 09:45 PM
pond experience needed
by jbird5986 - 03/28/24 09:39 PM
Alum vs Bentonite/Lathanum for Phosphorus Removal?
by FishinRod - 03/28/24 08:28 PM
New pond middle TN: establishing food chain?
by Bill Cody - 03/28/24 07:57 PM
Happy Birthday Bob Lusk!!
by FireIsHot - 03/28/24 07:33 PM
Working on a .5acre disaster, I mean pond.
by PRCS - 03/28/24 06:39 PM
Fungus infection on fish
by nvcdl - 03/28/24 06:07 PM
Can anyone ID these minnows?
by Dylanfrely - 03/28/24 05:43 PM
1 year after stocking question
by esshup - 03/28/24 04:48 PM
Yellow Perch Spawn 2024
by H20fwler - 03/28/24 04:29 PM
New 2 acre pond stocking plan
by LANGSTER - 03/28/24 03:49 PM
Paper-shell crayfish and Japanese snails
by esshup - 03/28/24 10:39 AM
Newly Uploaded Images
Eagles Over The Pond Yesterday
Eagles Over The Pond Yesterday
by Tbar, December 10
Deer at Theo's 2023
Deer at Theo's 2023
by Theo Gallus, November 13
Minnow identification
Minnow identification
by Mike Troyer, October 6
Sharing the Food
Sharing the Food
by FishinRod, September 9
Nice BGxRES
Nice BGxRES
by Theo Gallus, July 28
Snake Identification
Snake Identification
by Rangersedge, July 12

� 2014 POND BOSS INC. all rights reserved USA and Worldwide

Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5