Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Keeping Pond Topped Off With Well Water ?

I have a half acre pond that I aerate year round. I had many fish die this winter. I think it was due to low water level. I'm thinking about having a well dug in order to keep it topped off. The well driller stated that he has done many wells for my area and they normally flow 20-25 gallons a minute. Do you think this is sufficient to keep my pond topped off? And do you think the low water level was the reason for such a large winter kill? I would appreciate any and all feedback.

Tom F,

I have a well with a 1.5 horsepower submersible pump . The well driller went 148 feet to good water. Driller said I was getting 50 gallons a minute and it does a fine job keeping my 1.25 acre pond full. Mine is an open flow well which means no pressure tank therefore no hydrants. When you turn the well on it goes straight to the pond. Another thing is I have a 2" schedule 40 pvc piping going from well to pond.

Hope this was helpful. One last thing, my well man came with excellent references and did wells for several of my friends.

Hey Tom

I can't address the winter kill issue, but I'll give you my take on the well. I dug a 270' well and have a 5 hp subm pump doing 50GPM to keep four ponds totaling 5.5 acres full...doing the math including evaporation this GPM worked - although filling the remaining 3/4 of my 4 acre pond will take at least a couple months. I'll be running it at full bore all Spring and early Summer until I fill, then figure I'll need around 20 GPM feeding down through the series of ponds to keep things leveled off and flowing. I use gates to restrict water flow to the GPM I want, and a variable speed pump that automatically adjusts to the GPM.

20-25 GPM would be plenty to keep a .5 acre pond full. I would encourage you to research the project - its a great insurance policy for your investment. There are tons of Indiana forum members who could recommend some well drillers.

Tom,
One acre, one inch deep, is 27,000 gallons. Since you have a 1/2 acre pond, one inch of water would be approximately 13,500 gallons. If you have a well that pumps 20 gpm, you would have 1,200 gallons per hour, or 28,800 gallons per day. That means a half acre pond would rise more than 2 inches per day, a foot in less than a week.
Essentially, you will have enough water to keep the pond full all the time, if you want.
One word of caution, though. Learn about the aquifer where the water comes from.
I have seen well water do funny things to ponds...like be the main cause for muddy water due to an ionic imbalance of dissolved minerals. I've even seen water lacking in certain minerals as to need to be amended with gypsum or buffered with lime. If you can get a water analysis of that aquifer it would be helpful, especially if you do it before you drill the well. I've seen several cases where the landowner would have made a different decision regarding a well...if they had only known the issues in advance.

Bob,
I'm thinking the water will be coming from the same aquifer as my house well. Although never having it formally analyzed, through the use of it over the years I can tell it has lots of iron and sulfur in it. And in with time the water will leave lime deposits on household plumbing fixtures. What should I look for if I have it analyzed?

Tom,
I just emailed you a copy of a form I use to send in a water sample. Follow the directions, check the box for "Standard Test" and send off a sample in a clean plastic bottle (like a soda pop bottle). They'll check several minerals and metals along with pH, alkalinity and hardness.

Like Bob Lusk says you should have the water analyized to see what you are dealing with. There is a hatchery in Ohio (Remlingers) whose sulfides are so high in the well water the hatchery area smells like a sewage treatment pond. Really nasty smelling. The gas is blown off via aeration and doesn't hurt the fish but it sure stinks!

However, I've used a well essentially for years to top off my .62 acre pond (well water was pumped into a 1/10th acre trout pond and overflowed into the .62 acre pond.) With a pond your size I doubt the iron or sulfides would be a problem as long as they are not too high. < 3 ppm iron. < 200 ppm sulfides.

My 1/10th acre trout pond stays discolored from well water and iron coming in at ~ 2.5 ppm. It stresses the trout when I first crank up the well for the year but they adapt. I a 1/2 acre trout pond I doubt it would even discolor the water as it would settle before it could.

Bob,
The email address in my profile was outdated. I have now updated it and if possible would you please resend the form?

Cecil,
You have me wondering by using well water would it be possible to keep my pond cool enough to raise some cold water species?

50 gpms into a 1/2 acre pond will not keep it cool enough for trout but could keep at max temp of 75 F. When I ran my 45 gpms from the trout pond (lower 60's exiting the trout pond) into my .62 acre pond my pond never got above 80 in the summer. When we swam in it we wished it would have! I now bypass the .62 acre pond as I am going to dye the pond to keep Chara down and want to use more and more of the trout pond overflow for irrigation of an expanding raised garden.

However you could dig a 1/10th acre steep sided pond upstream of your 1/2 acre pond and that would work. Then overflow that into the 1/2 acre pond. The smaller pond would also allow the iron to settle somewhat and release gases. Not sure if you would need to go to the trouble of dropping your well flow into plastic media, or something similar, or not, for the trout pond. My method may be overkill.