Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? Redoing my ponds....again

4 or 5 years ago I pumped out my 2 farm ponds and hired a local, reputable contractor to redo them. All turned out well, or so I thought. I know my soil is good for sealing. (did the bucket test) Problem is he only "tracked them in" instead of packing them with a sheepsfoot roller. So my ponds leak, rapidly at more than an inch a day. Business has picked up so I am redoing the ponds again, this time myself. The ponds are way down so I have moved mud as needed to cover a few exposed rocks (a good foot + on top) and am almost ready to rent a compactor. Am I missing anything? Here are a link to some pics taken 1 month apart of the 2 ponds.
http://s707.photobucket.com/user/rickelrod/library/ponds

Rick,you need to take Ken up on his kind offer to meet you. He is as good as it gets. His ponds are a big success.

I most definately will. I must say, from a guy who is new to the forum, what a kind and friendly group of folks there are here. Thank you and I hope I can give back to the forum!

Rick:

I second getting together with Ken.

On the dirt issue, I don't know for sure if packing 12" of dirt at once will work. I was under the impression that the layers of dirt needed to be 6"-9" thick, so you could "knit" the layers together. Keep rolling until the sheepsfoot starts to "walk out" of the soil, them add another layer. Like cloth getting woven together vs. layers of paper in a stack.

OK, I am now getting antsy after reading through the site. Is there any reason not to put some good sized BG in my smaller, back pond now for immediate entertainment and possibly food? It is approximately 70' dia and has a max depth of only 3' but appears very healthy. It is full of minnows and some smaller BG of unknown strain. I figure I can focus my attention and resources on the larger pond redo for now.

No reason not to whatsoever. A pond that small is easy to kill and start over. Go have fun with it while you are working on the other one!