Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Soil questions SoilFloc Polymer Sealant

Sq ft of basin, not surface area. It’s a rough calculation and again none of this is exact unless we are treating a dry basin. Speaking of which I have had amazing results treating two dry basins where we stripped the liner to gravel veins, applied dry polymer, and capped with several lifts of high plasticity clay. Both ponds literally sealed like Tupperware, but 99.9% of projects occur in hydrated ponds so our control of the treatment is impacted significantly. Ideally leak identification needs to occur during excavation phase so when suspect materials are encountered one can treat them dry and cap with lifts of good clay. Unfortunately many of us (including myself) weren’t notified by professional performing work of suspect areas or we had no knowledge of treatment options so we hoped for the best and filled the pond....only to learn much later the issues we could have addressed. I will never build a pond again without having a pallet of polymer on hand just to be safe. I’ve dropped easily $50k in engineering and electric costs running well for 13 years trying to keep up with water loss - I could have saved $40k easily just by doing things right in the first place. I hope more Pond Pros become aware of the solutions at their disposal to address suspect material issues upon discovery instead of reliving all our collective nightmares.