Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Groundwater Ponds. What Mother Nature Giveth......

...... she taketh away. Pay attention to the dates of the pictures.

Here's what it looked like in the Spring of 2009, after the pond was renovated in 2008. My neighbor who's lived here for going on 20 years said it was the wettest Spring that he's seen.


Here's one year later, with the water level down about 55" from the previous picture:


Now fast forward 5 months and this is what I'd like the pond to look like all year 'round:


Here's what it looks like today 2-18-2011, roughly 35" lower than it was in late January of last year:


Here's another comparison:


2-18-2011


I still have 11 1/2 feet of water in the deepest part of the pond now. It's a good thing that I planned ahead for fluctuating water levels (even tho I don't like them) when I renovated the pond. This picture is from June 1, 2008, not January.


Here's a different perspective:
Today, 2-18-2011




So, for all the future PondMeisters out there who want to tie in their pond to an underground spring, or want to dig a pond and NOT have the pond sealed by a 2' thick layer of properly compacted clay, this is what to expect unless you have a well close by that can feed a LOT of water to your pond. My well puts out 28 gpm, and running it 24/7 will not keep up with the seepage once the ground water level starts to get low.

That's pretty drastic esshup.

2009 was pretty wet here also. You could practically hit water by poking a stick in the ground. Test hole had water at about 18". I was pretty excited to have that much ground water. I have two test holes now, one about 6 ft, and the other at about 8 ft. Both are dry as a bone. You can see the water erosion running in, and in the 8ft hole you can see where it puddles a bit, but that is it. I did more investigating and our water table is usually below 80".

There is a really old farm pond about 3/4 mile from here. Severely neglected and overgrown for decades, but it always held water. The new owner got in it with a track hoe to clean it up and make it larger, and now they have a pretty much dry hole. All it took was a couple scoops and it started to drain. The pond was clay lined. It is going to cost a huge pile of cash to fix it now.

Thanks to this site, I am going to put in a couple smaller EPDM lined ponds for now. I am also going to do two more test holes at 12-14 feet. I possibly could make a 3/4 acre GW pond work out front, because I have enough room to taper into it. Just have to wait and see.

The pond at my house (don't own it but have all the access I could ask for) has the potential for drastic fluctuations as well. At full pool it's 7 acres, I have a picture of it at about 10X20 yards in size, if that. Since the landowner doesn't seem to have much interest in the fishing side of it, I'm pretty much in charge of that by default. I wish it had the depth of yours, I think that'd solve a lot of potential problems.

Scot if I was in your shoes I would consider a permanent overflow much lower that would maintain your deeper section or part of your deeper section as your pond. Then run your well into it in the summer and grow out trout year around.

Cecil, I might still be able to do that, I'm going to try some different aeration this year even tho the pond might have more water in it. It was discussed last year.

I've never seen a weeping willow affect water level in a pond like it does in yours.

Scott,

How much extra pipe you have laying around? 15 or so miles worth? You can have some of my water. Had to yank out the sophisticated water control device tonight. It was close to going over

So you're tossing out the "vacancy" sign to the 'rats? I know how well they love tunneling into your dam when the water is low.

Send clay down with the water.

Scot,

My big pond has gone up a foot apparently from the melted snowfall. I'm up to the bottom of my pier right now. Not trying to rub it in or anything just wanted to share that with you.

Cecil, not taken that way. Mikey had to pull the plug on his pond, the water was almost going over his dam. He has a clay lined pond in North Liberty, and also gets runoff from a neighbor. HIS pond stays full all the time. If we had known each other when he dug his, I would have had enough clay to line mine - we were digging the ponds at the same time.

That's O.K. I still have bigger BG than he does!

Esshup,
So when your pond is low it is still fairly deep? It would not look so drastic without the island even though it is cool.
So there really is not an easy fix for your ups and downs? Huge volumn of clay or giant liner both very costly?
I too have a pond that comes up against the change in ground water level. I am at a loss but it is interesting at least. I guess.
Good luck. Even low I think your pond looks good.
jim

Jim:

Even with it this low I still have a bit over 11' of depth. When I renovated it we went down to 22', Hurricane Ike came thru not 3 weeks later and washed in 4'-5' of sand/sediment. At full pool it has about 18' of water depth.

The island was in the orig pond, and I just left it. The willow tree has roots that go thru the island and down quite a ways, keeping the soil in place. The dropoff at the island is 1:1.

The 3rd option is trying to spread bentonite over the bottom of the pond, and is the most unlikely fix in my mind.

The 4th and last option is to continually pump water into the pond. I think somewhere between 50 and 75 gpm would do it. Trenching around it and dropping a curtain of liner down to the first layer of clay would slow down the water loss greatly.

At least you still have some size and volumn. Dramatic ups and downs are frustrating though. I never know what to do with the regular area that is either underwater or dry.

You and me both. I have to keep the biomass at the "low water area" level because I'm afraid of overcrowding and causing a massive die-off if the fish all get crammed into a small area for a long time. I figure that I've lost 50% of the ponds area with the low water level. If I had a high biomass, the low water and snow/ice cover for the past 4 months I could have made for a massive fishkill.