Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? Help with fixing old pond

My grandad had this pond dug years back and I’d like to fix it to have some fish in. As you can see from the pictures I’ve gotta seal it, I’ve found environplug grout essentially western bentionite in my price range as well as I just found aquablok which looks promising as well.

Both have distributors in a reasonable drive so no huge shipping costs

Anyone know how these would do in my situation, are they safe for fish after the leaking is stopped , I’m talking a few months after I know I’ve fixed it

He had another dug before that that holds nothing , I’ve thought about connecting them and sealing it’s bottom too but tgat seems risky since it never holds for longer than a few days

I though bout using the one tgat holds for raising crawfish but that’s no fun to catch lol but maybe

Welcome to Pond Boss, Catdaddy!

Have you been observing this pond since you were a kid? (That will help with some of the answers.)

Why do you think your pond has a leak that needs to sealed?

How does the pond respond after significant rains when it gets full? Basically, if it rapidly drops X feet in a week and then slowly drops thereafter, you probably have a leak in the side of your dam or pond slopes. The water rapidly runs through a sizeable leak, and then once the level of the pond drops below the elevation of the leak the water loss slows to just your evaporation losses.

If your pond drains rapidly at first, and then drains to a very low level at a DECREASING RATE of loss, then you may have a bottom leak. The higher rate of water losses when the pond is full is due to the higher hydrostatic pressure more effectively pushing water through the leak. As the water level in the pond goes down, the hydrostatic pressure also goes down, so your water losses through the leak exhibit a decrease in rate.

Even when a pond has a "bottom leak" it frequently will NOT drain completely. Sometimes there is a "threshold pressure" for water to move through the leak. If that pressure is not exceeding with only 3 feet of water in the bottom, then the pond will quit leaking at that point.

I hope that gives you a little more "background" on what might be happening at your pond. If you can digest that and then post some more info about your pond, the forum does have some "leak fighting" experts that can give some more specific advice.

Finally, the view in the picture looks like a pretty shallow pond, that may have LOTS of organic material entering every year. Any chance the pond has just become filled with muck, and that has cost you the depth of your pond?

Well first off thanks for the reply,

I’ve been watching this one for a couple of years , my grandad had it dug when I was in my 20s n I’m 48 now so. At first it only held at the corner and wrote it off to another instance of my grandads ag engineering getting over ridden by being cheap.

I guess the original idea was it would catch the water he was losing out of the first pond , which you couldn’t tell him it needed to be sealed with bentionite, I came back from living in other states n ran back across it and it was full and I got to thinking , this could be a nice lil place to fish or raise crawfish , i monitored it for the last 5 years full during rains in bama and gets low to the back corner n holds there when dry.

Ponds about 10 ft at its deepest which is the back wall or dam, so I know it has to have a leak due to the levels going up n down from full right up to the shore at the end where you saw the picture was taken from , I know it could be deeper and have given thought about having that done.

But I want to know it can be fixed before I expand it just to have the same problem again.

Reason I think it’s a leak is it’s going somewhere but not like the first one does, when it goes it’s bone cracked ground dry in summer, the one pictured doesn’t do that it’s gets low n stays in the corner of the dam but never totally like the first one. I figured if I line the bottom with envirogrout it aquablok and it holds steady then I’ve got a handle on the soil and what it takes to Rehab these things into something useful

I don't know of a pond that bentonite fixed the leak completely.

It depends - I know of several where bentonite fixed all the problems.

Thanks, that was very helpful to add the additional information.

It does sound like a probable leak at this point.

Next test for you: After you get some significant rains and the pond is mostly full, wait until the "normal" ground on your property has dried out, and THEN do a good walking survey around your pond. Look for standing water, damp soil, or even a change in plant species relative to the adjacent areas at slightly higher elevations. That will help confirm a leak and start to give you some assistance in determining its location.

I don't know what your "repair" budget is, but a 10' deep pond in Alabama certainly has the potential to be a very valuable fishing pond. IMO, definitely worth trying some "smaller" fixes first.

At this point, my best advice to you would be to contact our best leak expert (TJ). He can recommend if physical product additions might work, or if you need full-scale construction equipment repairs.

Here is a link to his profile:TJ Profile

You can contact him via Private Message through the forum, or through his email which is listed in the profile.

He may not respond rapidly, since this is close to his busiest time of the year. However, he graciously volunteers to give free advice either in the thread (for public viewing) or in a phone consultation.

He also sells a product called SeekLeak, which is frequently more efficient and/or cost effective than bentonite in sealing several types of leaks.

Good luck on your leak "search and destroy" mission!

See that’s the weird thing, wife n I were gonna put a lil fish house camping cabin sway from it . So I’ve been all around it on foot , the only change in plant life is the grass you see in the picture, then back behind it it’s just pines n straw, typical southern woods .lower ground behind the dam ,

There is a series of deep ditches that have always ran back on the property, but none of them show any sign of water leaking into them, tgat was my first thought to check. Went back looking seeing if I could find a seep or running water, zilch .

So I’m gonna guess that the areas of a probable leak are around the changes from pond to tall grass, But I’d rather err on the side of caution n bentonite as much as possible n with some luck solve the mystery . Then think about some fish or crawfish once I know it’s not just wasted stocking.

I’ll never understand why grandaddy didn’t take advantage of the depth of one the ditches and have the pond done to that depth , that would have been a sweet pond

Thanks bud, yeah seekleak is soilfloc, which I can’t find for under 700 $ a bag which is way above my search n destroy mission, enviroplug and aquablok are both more affordable and both bentionite based and made with Wyoming bentionite ,

Company called wyoben, for any that might wanna look em up, I just lucked up n gave distributors within a hour drive so I can pick up and avoid high shipping fees

If I had my way I’d use seekleak, but since it’s outta my range a good bentonite product that’s safe is gonna be the next best thing, I might have to use more but , that will keep me focused on one fix at a time

I

Get in touch with TJ. The link is in FishingRod's post above. I have never known a bentonite product to work continually long term, and especially when just sprinkled on the water surface. TJ may very well be less expensive than the other polymer based products. He is a much smaller company with less overhead.

I’ll do that hopefully he has something in my price range , 700 a bag is a lot these days, at any rate at least I got some folks to talk it over with and show progress n such.

Hey Catdaddy, I am an AqauBlok representative and would more than happy to help you. AquaBlok is NOT a bentonite chip but is a composite bentonite aggregate (CBA). Unlike bentonite chips or powdered bentonite, AquaBlok can be placed directly though the water column and still achieve a low permeable seal. Our products aggregate core provides both weight to sink the CBA to the basins bottom and gives the sodium bentonite coating the confining pressure needed to create a low permeable seal without compaction, unlike bentonite chips that would need compaction to achieve a low permeable seal. AquaBlok is used all though out the country to create 100-year contamination caps specified by the USEPA along with countless basins, so longevity of the seal is not an issue. Feel send me a PM and we can chat some more.