Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction Hello, My name is Josh

Hi everyone

My name is Josh, I've been reading Pond Boss for a long while now, don't know why I waited till now to join. Found you all because every time I'd search for pond info your site was to be honest the only one that has relevant "real world" info. Oh the land grant colleges and other academics had the ideal scenarios down, but as we all know boots on the ground, different sites, environments etc,, change the game.

I am a farmer in southwestern Indiana. I have a one acre pond right now, its spring fed, stays cold on the bottom, which is about the 18 foot mark. I built this pond after removing the original pond. I bought this farm in 1999, and the original pond sat up on a small hill, when I measured it I found it was one eighth of an acre, when I discovered that it was spring fed I wondered why it was built so small. Then some neighbors told me it was built with a 3 point scoop on a 1968 Ford 4000 Gas tractor, well that explained it, it was built to hold the spring water for the cattle.

The ground was red clay, so I drained the pond, and let it dry, (best I could since ya can't turn off a spring) and rented a D6 Cat and ripped out the dam. Below the dam, down the hill was a swampy area, were the pond overflowed anyway, so I rebuilt the dam on the other side of this, the dam turned out to be 23 foot tall and 166 feet long, and now 10 years later it has never dropped below 18 feet. During heavy rain it gets to 22 feet and goes over the emergency spill way.

That project went well, I'm looking at a 5 acre project now. I'm not sure how to go about this one, though I know I like doing these things myself. This is a large ravine, only 5 acres of which are suitable for the pond, the other part flows out into a nice 8 acre valley which I use for pasture. This 5 acres is steep and kinda narrow, and the watershed is about 50 acres, which is huge for this area, so serious planning for the overflow is in order. Id like to get folks input on this, Ill try to figure out how to post some pictures,

Welcome to PB Josh. Southern Indiana huh? Whereabouts? Dammimg up ravines for a pond is fairly common in these parts, and all of ours were created in that fashion also. Any caves or sinkholes you need to be mindful of? This Karst thing can be a bugger when it comes to ponds

Good to have another Hoosier on board...stay put, smarter folks than I will be along shortly.

Josh, I second Sparkplugs welcome and am also glad ta have another Hoosier aboard. The Texans seem to dominate the posts but they all think of ponds as tanks. Go figure. I don't have any advice for ya except to watch out for Bruce. You'll find out soon enough what this warnin is about.

Welcome Josh! Stop in your counties NRCS office and talk to the agent. He might have a bit more information on the soils specific to your place. That's a start anyway.

If you want some reading material, there are some books on the Pond Boss home page store. Interesting reading, and good for building up the pond library.

What will you be using the new pond for?

Welcome Josh. I have a couple of thoughts.

Take a look at siphons. They do a good job of maintaining heavy overflow when you have that much drainage area. But, you still need an emergency overflow.

Regarding springs, they are great. I wish I had one. However, you have to be careful where they are in relation to the body of water. They have to be outside the pond/tank/pool/impoundment. If you hit one while dozing, you can create a problem for the pond. A spring is nothing but a pressurized, flowing, aquifer. If you have one that is below the water level of the pond, it can/will suck water if the level of ground water drops in periods of drought.

To post pictures, sign up for an image hosting service. (imgur.com, picasa.com, photobucket.com, etc.) Upload the photos to one of those sites then post the links here using [ img ] [ /img] tags.

Hello neighbor, Im in Greene county also, Im southeast of worthington, Calvertsville area

Sparkplug your right about the sinkholes, the north east corner of my farm is littered with them thats also were my 1 acre pond is, and is the reason it is not any bigger. Every year when I plow, I collect tons of stone, I dump them in those holes, and they still are not filled up, My neighbor says that they are probably (the stones) traveling under ground back to my fields

The five acre lake is for my amusement to be honest, but I told the boss (wife ) that it was necessary in order to flood out the foxes who eat her chickens.

But we all know that these days that we need to try to keep as much water as we can on our land.

Dave D. thanks I will look into siphons, and the spring on my one acre pond sits about even with the top water level and flows in so far no problems

esshup, I have been collaborating with the NRCS , they have been great, and have helped me with an equip program thats helped create watering sites and fences for my stock, that keeps them out of my creeks and ponds.
thanks all