Hello. I had a pond dug in mid june of this year about 75' diameter and roughly 12' deep at it deepest point. I didn't really do any research before digging and im afraid I made a huge mistake by not doing so. I will try and give you as much info as I can about the pond. First off there are many ponds all around my house wihin 2 miles that look fantastic, one of them being my neighbor that is only 1/4 mile down the road. The water table is relatively high here. I do believe there is a few different types of clay in the soil, they is very little blue clay, (like a moulding clay), just bits and pieces here and there, but there seems to be a lot of silt granular type clay. at first I just thought it was sand but after the pond was dug the piles dried out it was as hard as concrete so it cant be sand. when digging the pond there were several natural springs, maybe 4 or 5 about 8 feet down and they were letting out about as much water as a garden hose, which got me excited and the pond was filling up nicely. We then got a couple HEAVY thunderstorms and with all the runoff water the pond was pretty much brimmed to the top. I marked the water level with a stick and it held for another 5 or 6 days after. I was feeling good about things and then july hit and we went almost a month with high temps and no rain. I watched the water level drop about 1" per day on average and thought it would just stop but It just keeps dropping. It is at least 4 feet lower then what is was and still dropping. I do have a newer 4" well and I decided to try and help fill the pond with the well but I calculated that I have been adding about 1500 gallons a day and I can barley keep the water level from dropping any more. That means that I am losing more then 1500 gallons a day somewhere and I don't think evaporation will take that much. The back half of the pond the dozer built a berm about 4 feet tall and the front half is open. There is about 150' back up to my house were the grade very gradually runs back into the pond. I will try and get some pics to show the pond.

I am not sure what else to do maybe I should give it time over the winter but I don't think its looking good. I just thought that all my neighbors have nice ponds how could the soil be that much different just down the road, but maybe it is?

Any advice will help me out. thanks. jeff