Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Soil questions Top soil

Howdy! Atlast the lake is getting under way! We have been waiting 3 years for the water to let us start moving dirt. Now for the question. I was told that all of the top soil (Black Dirt) needs to be removed from the whole lake or the water would stay muddy. I asked the dozer operator if he had heard of that before and he said he hadn't. Does any body have any imput on this. I have taken lots of pictures of the process and have many stories that I will post when things slow down. Thanks

Can you post a pic ? Usually the top soil is saved and used on the dam's last 3-4 inches (top) so grass will grow well. The water being muddy will depend on a number of things.

We have a large quantity of extra top soil. The lake will be close to 30 acres. Parts of it need taken off to gain some depth but the rest of the lake will average between 8-15 feet. I am just flip-floping on weather I need to get the rest of it moved off. That will be about 20 acres. I just dont want to leave it if it is going to cause me trouble in the long run. Thanks

3f farms,

Up here in SD we have a couple ponds in the 25 acre range, and the black dirt ranges from 1-3 ft in depth across the bottom. This has caused no problems for me in terms of water being muddy. However if we had carp or other bottom rooting fish in the pond, that might be another issue.

I think a more important issue for you might be the water depth vs how much submergent weed growth you will have. In our ponds it takes a depth of 10-12 feet to keep submerged weeds from growing to the top of the water column. While some weed growth is useful for escape cover for young fish, too much can interfere with your enjoyment of the pond, and could contribute to winterkill (if you get ice cover).

Up here they recommend keeping weed to less than 25% of the surface area of the pond. We've got more than that in some of our ponds, and I'm now looking at getting in a dragline and excavator to deepen certain areas. It would have been much easier to move this dirt before the pond filled.

Thus I'd suggest that while you have the opportunity to move dry dirt, do it, if you can afford it. If you can get someone with a dump truck and excavator, you could move a lot of dirt in a hurry. You could also excavate the dirt in patterns to create some trenches, ridges, humps, holes, etc.

One think to keep an eye out for, however, is any porous materials that may underlie the black dirt. You don't want to dig into some type of material that could be connected to a passageway for your water to flow around or under your dam.

Bill

I sure wish you could truck some of that extra topsoil to my pond in the Ozarks....I can trade you tons of the rock I have for topsoil!

Thanks for the ideas. Rainman I wish I could ship you several hundred yards so I would have a place to put it. Speaking of rainman... man did it rain! We have gotten 8.25 inches in the last 2 days. The dirt contractor said that we had about 10 days before we will be done. Almost cried to see all that water run right on down stream. Easy come easy go. Thanks again for the ideas. Dan