So I'm the owner of a ~3 acre pond in central Texas. It's a leaky pond and I'm trying to do something about that. I decided to write up my story because I didn't find any really good detailed threads about trying to fix a leaky pond, at least not in my area.

We purchased the property in December of 2015. Didn't know much about pond management at that time. The pond is a beauty, around 3-4 acres when full and can reach almost 20 feet deep way out in the middle. The dam is high, but the back side of the dam is swampy. Didn't know it at the time, but that should have been a big red flag. I've looked at the pond using Google Earth and seen the pond got very small during a historic 100 year drought back in 2013. Less than half an acre. There are nice 3-4 lb bass in the lake, so I know it's held fish for at least 7+ years.

Now onto my story. The pond got really full in 2016 due to heavy rains, then we went back into a drought. The pond was steadily shrinking and I didn't know how to fix it. I investigated Sodium Bentonite, but never heard of anyone having success with it. Finally in December of 2017 I started investigating Soilfloc and heard some good things. I got hooked up with TJ from this site and he was very helpful explaining how to apply it and what I could expect. I was told 90% of people who apply it correctly see their leak slow by half.

So I started measuring my loss. I was running 0.15-0.25" per day of water loss. TJ recommended applying 4 oz of part A & part B to each 3'x3' area of the pond. He recommended treating to the bottom of the dam and then an additional 15 feet. My dam wall is about 200' long and I estimated how far the bottom of the dam is based on the lowest point of the pond. It's all kind of a big guess. We figured I'd need 2 units of Soilfloc at a minimum, but 3 would be safer. So I ordered 3 units. Grand total was in the neighborhood of $1000 after it was delivered. This is a pretty small investment, so we went for it.

I wound up sitting on the product for months. I continued to watch my pond drop and continued to measure it. Here are my pre-soilfloc measurements. I corrected for rain as best I could, and had to reset my depth gauge at one point.

Date Level Rain Level Change Days Loss per day
12/9/2017 17.5 NA
12/17/2017 15.75 0.25 2 8 0.25
12/28/2017 14 1.75 11 0.1590909091
1/20/2018 10 4 23 0.1739130435
Reset Pole
3/19/2018 16 NA
4/12/2018 12.5 3.5 24 0.1458333333
4/22/2018 8.75 3.75 10 0.375
4/28/2018 7 0.5 2.25 6 0.375

Finally I was able to get a weekend with low wind and a buddy out there to help me. We applied it by running a rope from T-posts across the shore. In hindsight it would go MUCH faster with 3 people. 2 on the boat and one on the shore moving ropes and T-posts. We ran out of time and only applied just over 2 units before the wind picked up. I figured we got to at least the bottom of the dam and was hopeful. I reset the depth gauge and got ready to wait.

Good news was that it rained very hard that next week. Over 2", which was much needed. But it made it damn near impossible to figure out my losses for that period. I did have a clue in that there was a mud ring on my depth gauge that was a good 2" above the current water level. And the back of the damn was still swampy... Maybe not a good sign.

Went back 2 weeks later and the pond is still leaking bad. If anything the vertical loss is accelerating because the pond surface area is decreasing.

As we're getting to bed my amazing wife says 2 things. First, take the boys out there in the morning and start catching fish to eat. Let's pull some fish out since they're getting crowded in our shrinking pond. Second, she's getting in the boat the next day and we're applying the rest of the Soilfloc. She's pretty cool like that...

Next morning we catch a few bass (my 8 year old lands a pond record 3.2 lb lunker he decides to name "dinner"), and the wind is down so we hop in the boat and apply the last of the material. We make another 7 passes across the lake, focusing on the deep parts. That's another 21 feet further from shore.

Here's my results post soilfloc (note I estimated 4" of rain due to the higher mud ring evidence):
Date Level Rain Level Change Days Loss per day
Applied Soilfloc - 2.2 Units
4/28/2018 14
5/11/2018 15.5 4 2.5 13 0.1923076923
5/27/2018 9.25 0.25 6.5 16 0.40625

So this is where we're at today. We're praying that this time we got the material where it needs to be. I will update this post in ~2 weeks when we make our next visit. There's no rain in the forecast, so hopefully we'll get an accurate measurement this time. Y'all say a prayer for us that it works this time. I'd love to be a Soilfloc success story.

Jeff