Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations New pond project

Mine's not a Honda, but still pretty good and use to hard work and neglect. I felt like I was overly pampering the pump two days ago when I changed the oil for the first time in 4 years. It was not a pretty sight!! YS, I'm going to try to work with the pipe that I have,
and see what happens. I think I have enough pieces to make it work. Still waiting for rain to raise the creek and hopefully the pond.
PS - sp. I promise to do a better job concerning the oil...

We've gotten a lot of rain in the last week so that has helped. I'm still going to have to pump, but just waiting and taking advantage of any rain that comes my way. I still want to bring the water up about 5 more feet, but want to make sure I have no more leaks.

Could someone tell me the link to the 5 HP water pump that sets on the water and costs 2000$. I saw the pump last week but was out of town and can't find it now. One more question, does anyone know if a ABS jet pump is a good one. They are Wellmaster 50-75 and are made in Italy. Thanks.

Was it posted on PB? A recent reference to a pump was a link inside of this topic.

Fish,it was on PB and could pump 40000 GPH. It isn't the one you listed but I would like to know how that one works. Just curious, as I am an old shop teacher. Thanks for the reply.

Well, it looks like I still have a leak. This pond was built years ago by damming up an existing creek. That creek has been dry for about 6 years. My water is leaking and it first appears about 50' below the dam (as a small puddle) and follows the old creek bed down to my year-round stream. In places it goes underground and resurfaces further down the creek bed until it puddles up at the bottom (1st picture). The dam is about 200' up hill (30-45 degrees) until it get to the base then its about 60 degrees up to top. This picture is taken from about 175' below the dam.

This picture is what I can see that I'm losing from the leak (about 450 gal/day).
Rough calculation (2oz every 3 sec). I don't know how much else is being lost that I don't see.

When the water first appears, it's a tiny trickle (maybe 1 oz/min), but the ground is soft and I can poke a stick in the ground an hit water above this puddle (back closer to the dam). If you've read this entire thread or if you've experienced this situation, you know my frustration. Don't know exactly what I'm going to do other than let the pond continue to leak until it stops, and try to find the leak, and try to fix it again.

Bummer, Randy. Seems like it's not really bad, but enough that it needs to be addressed and that it nags at you.

With a pond that size it may be worth a shot at using aquagel (drilling mud used by the oil & gas drillers). It comes by the 50 lb bag. There are a few threads here on the subject. It worked on one of ours that had a stray sand area.

Eric, is that similar to bentonite? I mixed in about 25 bags when we redid the base of the dam, and it hasn't seemed to help. Of course the leak could be anywhere, so I'll probably just let it leak on down and start over.

I wonder if there is another source of water/spring that just so happens to be feeding the creek some of the water you are seeing? Hopefully not sourced by the pond... though what you are seeing may be the culmination of all of the water seepage under and around your area.

The real question is if your inflow can keep up with this outflow?

I think maybe another option would be to build a secondary pond downstream and capture/stop this water. If able, you could bring the level up to the existing dam or close enough to it that there isn't enough static pressure difference to force the leak any more. That would save needing to drain the pond, and you would have another BOW as a result of spending more $$$ rather than just shifting some dirt around. Just a thought.

Part of my answer to ls is here in CAPS and the rest is below...


GOOD THOUGHT, BUT THE ONLY PLACE I ALWAYS SEE WATER IS AT THE VERY BOTTOM OF THE HILL - 75' BELOW THE BOTTOM OF THE DAM. THIS WATER IS ALL UNDER GROUND. A DAM 25, 50, FEET FROM THE BASE OF THE DAM WOULD SEE A LITTLE WATER, BUT IT QUICKLY SEEPS THRU THE GROUND.
WHAT YOU SUGGESTED SOUNDS GREAT, BUT IT LOOKS LIKE I WOULD HAVE TO BUILD A DAM AT THE BASE OF THE HILL (75' HIGH) TO HOLD THE WATER AND EQUALIZE THE PRESSURE - PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I'M OFF BASE HERE. I LIKE THE IDEA OF SMALLER PONDS (LIKE WHAT BEAVERBOY DID), BUT IT WOULDN'T WORK IN MY SITUATION.
THANKS FOR THE THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTION, AND SORRY FOR THE CAPS...

With a couple of good storms my pond is almost 50% full. There is still this leak at the base of the dam. The first hole above the puddle is full of water, the next one has water and the top 2 have moist clay.


The water from the base of the dam goes underground and resurfaces a couple of times until I get this flow just before the water empties into a stream. It measures out to be about 2000 gal/day. Hard to believe, but it 6 ozs every 2 seconds.


Like lsquid suggested, this water could be coming from somewhere else. Oh well, I might eventually build another small pond down near the creek.

Heck, Randy, at the size of those ponds shown in your pictures, why not build a few hundred of 'em? By the way, that is apparently one HUGE cat!

Yeah Todd, that cat is the size of a pregnant blue whale.
Go to my "Back-hoe" thread and remind me what kind of tractor you just got...