Well... I am still trying to get my pond to hold water.
It filled up a couple times with natural run off in the heavy winter rains, but as soon as we had a few dry days it drops. At first it dropped about 4 inches a day, and then after loosing about a foot it slowed down to about an inch a day. It seems to stabilize at about 3 feet deep, but at this time of year, with visible water trickling in from the back side with the mountain behind it, this doesn't seem like good news.
I have a seasonal creek up above the pond which doesn't actually flow into the pond and I rigged up a hose and completely filled it a couple times, and it still looses all that water fast. The dam has firmed up over the winter and although it may allowing a bit of water to seep out somewhere, there is no visible leak and if that much water was coming through the dam, I am sure I would see some sign of it. So I am thinking I am probably loosing it through the bottom or the sides which are in the natural clay sub soil into the water table. When the pond was dug at the end of the summer, the excavator began fluffing up some clay in the bottom to compact it, but there was too much water coming in from a couple tiny springs. It quickly turned into a sloppy mess, and never got properly compacted. So I am using an electric pump to drain it, in the hopes I might be able to fix it.
What I am hoping is that I can attach a rubber tube onto either a hollow cedar peg or a hollow metal tube and insert this in the main springs, packing clay in around this,(as I mentioned above) Then hopefully I can send most of the water into a bucket or if there is enough water pressure out of the pond basin entirely. The run off from the back I hope to channel into a low spot, or possible into a bucket. Then I can siphon or pump it out, which I hope might give me a dry enough space to do some compacting. I guess if I am lucky I will find one obvious hole but I suspect I will have to try to compact the whole inner basin of the pond.
As this is a small space (about 18 by 20 at the rim) it isn't going to work to get a machine in to do this, never mind a sheep's foot roller on a tractor, and I am hoping I may be able to do this with hand tools, like a base ball bat, my own body weight walking around on the bottom, and maybe a sledge hammer.
This isn't the best time of year to try and do this as things are still very wet, but I don't have any source of water to refill the pond besides the seasonal creek so I would like to try and make a repair with plenty of time to work the pond over with hand tools and refill the pond from the creek. When conditions get drier the creek will also dry out and I don't want to be left with a compacted pond and no way to completely fill it later in the season.
What I am wondering is, will my best bet be to try to remove the soft clay muck which resulted from the bottom being fluffed up but not compacted, and then work the undisturbed clay beneath that with the base ball bat and sledge hammer, or should I remove the muck, then fluff the undisturbed clay with a shovel and then try and compact that?
If the base ball bat and sledge hammer doesn't work, is there any way to compact clay in tight spaces other than those huge sheep foot rollers? I don't have access to a herd of cattle.
And if the water can be mostly pumped out, is it possible to compact a pond bottom that exists below the natural water table?
