Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Jerry's pond - construction photos, etc

Thanks for the imput DD.

It's still early in the year. Maybe the water will improve enough in a few months to consider a FH spawn. Maybe?

GW yes FH can survive in muddy and low DO water , if there is food. When the water gets up about a foot more transfer some FH into the pond. In the meantime (I estimate 2-3 weeks) find about 3 pallets (able to float) to toss in with rope attached with the free rope end staked to the pond bank at full level (spawning material). After the FH go in feed them some pellets about 3 times a week. You should be in good shape. Yes last falls yoy will spawn this spring if in good condition.

Sure did hate to see this tree go. We weren't even sure what is was, but it was in the future wet place.

cool shot GW...thats similar to the CAT i rented on my pond renovation, they are awesome timber removing machines.

Here's a video of Flop Ear Dog managing the progress at my pond. He couldn't have been happier.

Looks like FED was in a mood to show off!

I almost got dizzy watching that. Round and round and round...

...pond construction will do that.
That's how my contractor got me to sign the contract.

Can't see either video...photobucket seems to be having a conniption. Flashing lots of icons, etc., but nothing happens.

Here's my project manager watching the progress. You can also see my place and Cindy's in the background.



It rained about 1/2 inch last night and there's been a constant trickle into the pond today, about what you could get out of a kitchen faucet. Even this amount of water is nice to see after 2 years of drought and the pond level is up about 1 foot since Friday. The good news is that once my neighbor's pond is full I'll get his runoff from about 15 acres. His pond has come up about 2 feet in the past month and has another 3 feet to go.

Here's a few shots of my siphon. The elbow on the left in the photo isn't glued, it's got 3 screws holding it instead. If the intake ever gets clogged up I can just remove the elbow and pull the pipe out of the water for maintenance. That's not my idea, it's the contractor's. This is 8" pipe which seems over sized for a 1/5 acre pond doesn't it? Any modifications to suggest?



The water continues to rise slowly even though the pond upstream isn't full yet. Once it's full my pond should fill up pretty quickly. Of course that assumes we get back to normal rainfall levels.


To add to my last post, you can see both Cindy's place AND my place in the photo above.

3 weeks since completion and................

FULL POOL!

Well, it's still about 6 inches shy of full but it came up 8 inches in the last hour and it's still raining.

Quick question: Should the siphon start when the vent first gets plugged or does the water level need to reach the top of the horizontal pipe. I'm getting a little worried about the fact that the dam is still so new and somewhat soft.

This afternoon:

I think Mr. H's upstream pond may have filled because the water seems to be rising even faster. It's now 1 inch below the vent. There are some scary looking washed out areas on the back of the dam but they haven't gotten significantly worse in the past few hours.

I'm getting some good use out of my raincoat.

That's terriffic G-dub...Big time congrats. Zen is movin' like Santa Claus on Christmas eve.

I know very few uses for a raincoat that are as good as watching a new pond fill.

We got 3 inches of rain Sunday night and we're up to about 2.5 inches for today with no indication it's going to let up much. The flow through the culvert that feeds the pond must be putting out at least 150 gpm. I just can't imagine it would take more than 2 seconds to fill a 5 gal bucket right now. I think I may have underestimated the watershed for this little pond. I've been getting about 1 foot of rise for every inch of rainfall, and that's before the upstream pond filled.

I'm now at about 5" over full pool and rising. The siphon is 8" (edit: 6") pvc so I'm guessing it will prime in another 2+ inches. I think the rain has stopped for the night, but the water is still flowing in at a high rate. The watershed is large enough that the water flows for several days after a rain. There are also some small "springs" that have been trickling in consistently for several weeks.

The pond is bigger than I thought.

I think it was around 4:30 this morning when the water started flowing over the emergency spillway. Naturally the soil is still very soft and I was very worried because the stream was only 1.5 feet wide and moving fast. I tried using the tractor to flatten out the area but of course I just got the tractor stuck. I used a shovel to widen the overflow to 5 or 6 feet and the erosion doesn't seem too bad. In the end it seems to have functioned ok, but I have no idea what another few inches of rain might do.

The rain has finally stopped but the prediction for today and tonight is 90% chance of rain and possible thunder storms decreasing to 40% chance for Saturday. Total rainfall so far tonight is 3.6 inches.

I'm going to call the pond man in a few hours to see if he can come by and check out the situation. I closed the valve on the siphon vent thinking I need to lower the water level in anticipation of more rain.

In the very near future I'm going to get a shutoff valve for the discharge end of the siphon. If I had one there now I would let the pond drain a few feet below full and then instead of breaking the siphon I would close the discharge off. That way I could lower the pond a little as insurance but still keep the siphon primed. Then if more heavy rains came I could start the siphon again without having to wait for the water to fill the pipe back up. I hope that made some kind of sense after no sleep.

The radar isn't showing anymore rain heading this way for a while, but I'm glad to see a big sloppy cell heading straight for Atlanta.

If anyone can give some input on my siphon I would appreciate it. I started a thread HERE.

Nice!

Is this going to be a warmouth pond?

Thanks Gam. Yes, I'm going to make WM the main angling fish. I also want to have Gar, Bowfin, and every kind of native minnow and small fish I can collect.

Good job getting the tractor stuck. I have done that myself 4 times now. Did you get somebody to pull you out or did you get to use a shovel?

wow gw, nice update. this is why its good to over-engineer emergency spillways....estimate maximum water shed flow, then double the size of spillway...hope it all works for you.

ezylman, my neighbor came over in his big Deere tractor and pulled me out of the soup. All of the ground around here is saturated from the recent rains. I almost got stuck in my driveway!

Dave, I was initially worried because of how new and barren the emergency spillway is, but I'm amazed at how stable this soil turned out to be. We have more storms predicted for tonight and tomorrow, but I think I'll be ok if I can keep the siphon working properly. I did lose a couple of feet off the back side of the dam in places, so I'm going to add more protection today.

GW, it is good to have neighbors. I had to wait until it dried up to dig my tractor out one of the times it got stuck. Talk about two days of my life I will never get back...