Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Should I drain it?

We haven't had any rain for about 3 weeks and my pond is starting to look bad.

It's about 14" low and looses about 3/4-1" a day. I have a NRCS agent coming out Friday to give my some advice on what to do.

There is a creek behind the dam that I think my water is leaking into. I've thought about just pumping out of the creek back into the pond, but that seems more like a bandaide instead of a fix. Plus there would be reacurring costs.

I'm almost ready to just drain it.

If I decide to drain it, would just pumping it out work or would I need to cut the dam so I wouldn't have to pump every time it rains?

Also how long would I have to keep the bottom dry before a dozer could rework the bottom?

If you don't notice any obvious leaking then I would say go for pumping water into it. You can find some real reasonable prices on pumps on E-bay I bought a brand new 4500 gph pump for my Koi pond that uses very little electricity. During the summer I pump water from my well as I can lose up to 28 inches during the 6-8 week dry spell we always seem to have. I am about 8 inches behind on rain for the year and the pond is down about 6 inches right now.

Bob in North Alabama

Pumping from the creek isn't unusual in arid areas. The only problem is getting unexpected fish out of the creek. I have no idea how they survive the impeller but they do.

If I were going to drain it, I would use a siphon. There are several references here and instructions. Don't break the dam.

However, if the proximity to the creek is the problem, I would think that you have some sort of sand type aquifer between the creek and the pond. You would have to identify and solve that problem. 1" per day doesn't sound bad in my part of the world. If it were me, and it's not, I would probably go for the bandaid approach and filter the creek output.

The only problem with the creek it is small. If we stay dry too long it will dry up too.

I am new at this and learning but I will give my 2 cents. I have a friend whom filled his pond from a creek. He filled it in early spring for several weeks. He ended up with all kinks of unwanted fish. When he went to refill when the pond went down rapidly he killed everything. The onlything I could figure was it was during the time the farmers were spraying fields. His creek has fields lined on both sides (very large fields). I don't know if that was what killed the fish but That was my guess. If it were me I would keep in mind of what actvity goes on up stream.

Aaron,

You may be "new" at this, but that's an outstanding post.

Well, NRSC gal came out Friday.

I'm still, undecided what to do. She gave me some die tablets that I'm using to try to locate the leak with, but with no sucess so far.

She said if I decide to drain it, I should wait until November so it can refill without drying out too much.

So, I'm probably going to have my neighbor dig a little pool in the creek with a skid loader that I can pump from.

scsims,

I don't understand her logic of waiting until November "so it can refill withot drying out too much".

Presumably, if you drain it, you want it to dry out so you can get a dozer in to repair the problem. I don't know about your weather, but certainly around here you do not want to schedue any pond work in November or thereafter due to wet weather conditions.

Draining should be the last option on the table, only to be executed after the other options previously discussed have been tried without success, IMHO.

Her logic was that if I drained it now and we had a long dry spell that bottom would crack up and could cause more problems.

it doesn't have to have a hole in the dike to lose water, does it? it could certainly be evaporating or seeping into the soil. if you aren't getting "fresh" water daily, it just HAS to go down slowly, i would think.

but this is my first post and i didn't even sleep in a holiday inn express last night...so what do i know?

I think her logic isn't logical

If you plan to get a dozer in there to do some work, you want the bottom dry.

Well, I floated out on the pond over the weekend and and used a 15ft pole to try to locate the rock shelf.

Let me tell ya, there is a good section rock in the deepest point in the pond. I bet it's leaking through that somewhere. But the dye hasn't showed up behind the dam yet.

Yep, I'd bet you are right...it could be that the main leak won't show up in your dye test either, the water could be going down and out where you can never see it.

If that's the case, I'm sorry to say that your only option for a reliable fix is to either cover that rock area with good thick clay or dig it out and repack...either way, not going to be cheap.

Pumping from the creek sounds better and better.