Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Best way to determine rate of water loss

I have a pond that is leaking after being constructed last year. The contractor is working with me to fix it but first I would like to know how fast it is losing water beyond what is "normal". Right now I have a yard stick in the pond and can take measurements at any time and record them. My question is about how to best take a control reading to compare to the pond reading. I have heard to fill a bucket and other ideas. I want to make sure that evaporation due to wind is factored into to control reading. Also, I am curious how much (inches or fractions of an inch) per week is considered OK for a pond to lose.

Thanks

Welcome to the forum, LJ.

Sorry to hear about your leak issues. I work with with the Pond Boss forum family on issues like this, I'm happy to help anytime if you'd like to hop on a call together, my time to the forum family is always free.

The way we measure water loss is through daily vertical measurements - we also calculate evaporation based on your current weather [wind, temps, relative humidity, slope of pond all play factors on evaporation rates]. We can calculate the gallons lost daily using a formula I can relate to you. There is really no hard fast rule on acceptable water loss - it's determined by several factors unique to your situation like annual precipitation, watershed size, supplemental irrigation, fish species goals, etc.

I'll send a PM your way [located under "My Stuff" tab] and try to set a time to connect with you and help however I can.

Welcome again to the forum - we're glad you found us!

TJ

Huge Thank You to TJ, a forum volunteer. He is a wealth of knowledge on all things pond. I plan to work with TJ on strategy to reduce my leak down to an acceptable amount, then work on stocking the pond with fish.

TJ and I spoke on the phone and covered a lot. I took two short videos that I shared with him, walking the pond, to give him an idea of the size, shape and location of the pond, as well as show him where the water is collecting.

We determined that I have a core trench leak, either somewhere in the dam or in the toes of the core trench, where the core meets the native soils. We talked through potential solutions, which first started with approaching the contractor to stand behind the work he did just last summer (I have a 1 year old pond).

When you have a pond leak, you can address it from the retention aspect or the water supply aspect. We will work on both. One project we identified is for me to install piping from my home gutters down to the pond. This will help from the supply angle.

From the leakage angle, I have a couple homework assignments. One is to take vertical loss readings. I installed a yard stick attached to a piece of rebar to do this. I determined that I am losing about 1/4 to 3/8 inch per day. TJ also asked me to identify the main arteries of the dam leak (I have more than one), dig down with a shovel, and measure how long it takes to fill up a gallon container (ice cream bucket, or similar). I haven't done this yet. This allows us to do a mathematical calculation of water loss from the vertical water level decrease, and the outbound flow. They need to be within 20% of each other, or you might be losing water elsewhere (main pond basin leak - into the earth)

My next step is to talk with the contractor and see what he plans to do to fix the dam issues. TJ said that typically in this case he recommends either 1) draining the pond and redoing the core trench, including proper compaction with a sheeps foot roller, or 2) with pond in tact, building a reinforcement core trench on the outside of the existing core trench, also with proper compaction methods.

I am going to call the contractor and see how he plans to fix my problem. I don't want to end up worse off than I am now.

By the way, if we are unable to get the desired outcome with the contractor, which is the situation many people find themselves in, TJ recommended a polymer called SoilFloc. He has completed 250 projects with this polymer and has seen very positive results with it. He also knows how to properly apply it.

We discussed that my pond probably would need 2 units of the polymer if we end up using it to solve my problem. He provided me the cost as well.

My next questions for TJ are:
1) If I plan to go with option 1 or 3 (polymer), can I go ahead and stock the pond now, or do I need to wait until Fall.
2) Do I need to (politely) demand certain compaction methods from the contractor? The reason we are in the situation is that core trench was not compacted correctly the first time.
3) Should I skip straight to option 3 (polymer) since i have a quarter to 3/8 inch leak? I don't want the contractor to make the problem worse than it is now.
4) Discuss more details on how I measure the outbound leakage rate on the back side of the dam. We talked about using a shovel.

Many thanks to TJ for his knowledge, his passion, and offering his time to me to help me through my problem. People like TJ are exactly why I joined the forum and posted my problem.