Last weekend we built a small pond, 18' x 24' x 3' deep, filled once with hose but was dry within 24 hours. We think the problem is failure to compact properly, as we have nice heavy red clay that holds water well in our neighbor's old, established ponds. The area of the pond basin is too small to contain any heavy equipment. Any ideas for improvising a way to compact the clay? We don't have livestock. I tried riding my ATV around the pond floor for a couple of hours and it seemed to compact the clay / soil a bit
, but I'm hoping one of the pond experts can offer a better solution for compacting, in a pretty small space, without machinery.
Thank you!
