Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Cribbing on mucky bottom

I've read up on why cribs work and why they fail. I understand the need for brush and to rebrush etc. Also the desire for having a "basement"

Where I will be sinking mine the bottom is muck. About 3' of muck. In my probing it seems that this muck has sort of a fibrous crust. When I poked a 2" pvc down I found initial resistance then it let go and penetrated, pushing fairly easy until it hit solid bottom.

I was thinking that I need to create a pallet structure with the first pallet layer having a plywood bottom. Then some cinder blocks for weight at the corners and another pallet layer on top. The hope is that the initial pallet layer would remain largely on top of the muck and not sink in. The area between these pallets would be the "basement" and hopefully remain somewhat open. On top of the second pallet layer I would build a crate of sorts that would need to be brushed in.


On the topic of brush it seems that life expectancy is relatively short. To me this is where some sort of a non decomposing material would shine. Maybe a loosely wound roll of old poly snow fence? Not dense enough?


Access to the water body is limited so anything I would use would have to be packed in a sled and drug through woods, downhill, etc out on the ice. I have aspirations to create an ATV path, but that may not happen for some time.

Is there a line where muck turns to gravel/rock at any depth?
If not, you need some shallow, somewhere if at all possible.

Try a piece of plastic like a office chair carpet protector in lieu of the plywood...(rots to fast)to spread weight out. Unfortunately this all adds up to quite a bit of weight which will only make it sink more over time I'd assume.

Maybe skip the pallets and crate/container and simply sink brush. The snow fence will work but can be tricky to keep together. Large limbs in a criss cross pattern first, then the smaller limbs and branches should form a pretty good base for future additional wood.

If interested in artificial materials, just add the larger diameter "plate" to the bottom of your buckets. A plastic fence picket cut in half would work well fastened to the bottom to spread the footprint?

I haven't probed everywhere, but it seems pretty consistent. I'm kind of thinking that a solid bottom sheet should keep it from sinking. There seems to be a pretty fibrous/woody "crust" that resists penetration of a 2" pipe but once the crust yields the pipe pushes pretty easily.

Nothing to do now until ice is on again. Seeing how the muck resists penetration I'm thinking I'll be fine with something that has significant surface are to reduce the psi.

Or make it like the houses are made down South where flooding from hurricanes is possible. Up on stilts, so the bottom of the stilt penetrates the muck and goes down to the hard layer under the muck. Build it on top of the ice next winter, weight it down with rocks, etc. and when the ice gets thin enough it should punch through, sinking right to the bottom?