Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Soil questions Pond holding water...success notes

update on pond repair (attention OTTO)--to fill in readers-- originally built pond 3 yrs ago--leaked badly--two summers ago cleaned out two ft of bottom and packed red clay---last summer was going to try a trench and pack it with red clay (mini core if you will)--rain begain and my spring began to run so waited till this summer---changed plans and decided to dig out face of dam and tie in another 2 to 3ft of red clay to that already in bottom of pond and up app. 1/2 the face of the dam--waded pond to locate any "soft spots" found a couple--dropped pond then cleaned out soft spots and bottom 3rd of dam and put in red clay--packed as best we could using bucket of trac hoe-- in soft spots sandwiched in some kitty litter+DB200 between layers of red clay---i already had the kitty litter and db200 or would have simply used the red clay as my experiments show little improvement using those against the red clay alone-- that said you must have good availability of quality clay to try this. spent 6,500 on first cleanout of bottom and lining--added another 2,700 on this effort--total spent on pond now app. 40k for 1 3/4 acre so this will wind up my efforts for a long time to come---will keep this updated. my advice--before building a pond and dam read this site well--know what to look for in clay to core the dam correctly--don't believe everything your contractor tells you ---make them do it like you want it done for once they are gone they are usually gone and accept no blame.... p.s. first lining of pond bottom helped a lot so that lead to decision to continue along the same lines...