Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? Read the book now ??

I dug a pond four years ago. Never really held water. Bought the book the perfect pond. I know some of the mistakes were made and now have a few questions, should I pump out the water that is in the pond now. Was pretty dry until lot of rain last week. The books shows such dry ponds being dug? Do you still dig a key way on the bottom if you already have clay for soil? After it is dug should you have water trucked in and fill or just wait for mother nature? Do you dig deep until you hit water. We du one small point about 4'x4' and hit water but never went any bigger or wide and total depth was about 10 feet.

dant, welcome to the forum.

The key is needed if you have a ravine that you are creating a dam across.

If your pond is an excavated pond without a dam, you still need to pump out water, and compact clay from the very bottom to slightly above the high water line in the pond.

If you dug the pond and water came in, if it wasn't compacted, it can go out the same way once the water pressure in the pond is greater than the groundwater pressure. Ponds that have water seeping into them from the ground are hard to properly compact, and are called groundwater ponds. You are at the mercy of mother nature with them. Water levels ebb and flow according to the water levels in the ground. I have such a pond, and it will vary 6' in water level from wet to dry years.

I dug mine 22' deep to keep enough water in the pond for the fish to survive.

Typically you should have enough of a watershed that rainfall can run across the ground and fill up the pond. If not, then you'll have to fill it from a well.

That was our biggest mistake, nothing was compacted when we were finished. Was waiting for our August drought to dig but we just had 5 inches of rain fall in Michigan so I may pump out.

Don't be hard on yourself. I'd bet the majority of pond leaks are due to not properly compacting the whole pond basin, or not having good enough soil (i.e. clay) to compact in the first place. My pond? It's a combination of both of those things.

So how do you combat ground water when you dig? I know I will hit water.

It's hard to combat ground water unless you build a sump and keep it pumped out as you compact the pond bottom. Mike Otto would tell you to keep pumping and at the last, after everything is like you want, pump the sump empty and quickly backfill and seal with clay to stop water from flowing in. Just like Scott said above, ground water seepage will dictate your water level. If you have a large enough watershed, you can seal the pond, it will fill with rainwater and runoff and you can have the water level where you want it, subject to droughts and floods, evaporation compared to input.