Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Soil questions SoilFloc Polymer Sealant

Found 50 pound bags of Sodium Bentonite at my local feed store.

John, I just found some also. Thanks

I just keep watching and waiting. I am so ready to try mine but am still afraid it is leaking too much. Once the spring rains start and mine comes up again I will see. TJ we had spoken and I will keep this in my mind.
Thanks guys

assuming no weather problems, I'll do it Saturday morn.

Plan: Mix the A and B along with bentonite.

Apply with cups or grass seeder.

Any thoughts?

That's what I did Dave, minus the bentonite. I just mixed part A and B in a small seed mixer and back trolled over the area I planned to treat. It worked great.

We did it Saturday. Joshua Flowers kept us pretty well on target. Al Hall(FIH) came from East Texas. My Grandson and his friend did the boat work. Wind was light and very little floated away. The stuff mostly sank when it hit the water.

NEDOC, we use a small scoop and made 3 tosses per time.

We treated the area that we THINK had the leak where it was running under the uncored dam. Of course, since I can't see the area under 12 to 15 ft of water, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I also used bentonite.

I still have half of it left so I can do it again if we missed on this shot.

I live 70 miles away so will probably be able to check next weekend. Given a chance, I would be there every day and checking every hour. If it didn't work, I will blame myself for not being able to find the right place to treat. I have no reason to suspect the product.

No fish floated and we never noticed the water clearing.

Dave,
Did you take photos during the application? If so, please post them.

Glad the project went well, hope it finds your leak and slows or stops it. Unfortunately sourcing leaks is not an science, and frankly the polymer is not a guaranteed fix, even partially. However, we're looking at upper 80% success rate on projects thus far, so I'm very hopeful for good news.

I didn't take pics but Joshua Flowers did.

I'd sure like to see the pics.
Question, your earlier post gave me the impression you were going to use a spreader of some type, then your last post, it sounds like you tossed it. How can you tell you have 2oz? Which is supposed to cover 11 sq ft.
I haven't put any out yet. We haven't had any rain since Jan 1, well, less than an inch..
My pond has dropped 20" since Jan 1. One suggestion was to wait until you had a full pond, so the hydraulic pressures were greater. Now I'm thinking I have eliminated quite a bit of the bank area that I don't need to treat. The 20" vertical drop, exposes 40+" of shore.
I still just don't have any sort of feel for the application itself. I like the idea of mixing it in a spreader and broadcasting it out, but once again, how much is enough, without wasting a bunch?

SetterGuy, DD1 or Joshua may post more details, but Joshua had a scale and weighed out 2 ozs, put that amount in a scoop, then marked that scoop at that 2 oz line. After that, the 2 parts were put in separate buckets, and then just scooped out when thrown. To me at least, it worked well, and kept the Soil Floc amounts consistent for every throw.

Thanks. I'll have to get my scale up to the farm. 3.5 X 3.5 will be easy enough to estimate. Did you try to shake it out, over the water? Sprinkle it? Or throw it down, as has been recommended?

The boys threw it down.

It seemed to me that all the heavy mental lifting was done before the boat was ever deployed. Once the actual application process started, it went very smoothly with minimal delays.

I bought a small scoop at Walmart. 2 oz. just isn't much and doesn't cover a very big area. You have to think that it somewhat disperses in the water. And, it's tough to get the part B to hit Part A as it sinks. Then the bentonite on top of it has to be right.

I think mixing A,B and bentonite might work better.

For some reason, mixing is not recommended by AquaBen. I tried mixing a small quantity (couple pounds total) of A, B, and Bentonite (probably 75 % Bentonite by weight) as an experiment close to the bank, and it just fell straight to the bottom in a small area, and made blobs of "jelly" that I had to break up with a stick to prevent frogs and such from getting entangled and dying.

Dave,
Do you have any Soilfloc results to report?

John, I'm going there tomorrow for the weekend to check. It's 70 miles away and I've forced myself to stay away. I checked about every hour after we put it in but didn't expect any results that soon.

Lots of anticipation and almost scared to look.

Aren't you supposed to get more rain soon? From the South West?

My bad....seems there are several on here who don't live near to their ponds. Guess I am lucky...it is a 8 minute walk on a bad day.

Scott, slight chance of rain in the near future.

Thought I would report on the results I have had using Soilfloc Sealant. Ordered the product from TJ last August but it was later part of Sept or first part of Oct before I could apply to the pond. The pond I was trying seal was really small with steep sides and approx 10 feet deep. After applying it it was around 3 or 4 weeks before I noticed any difference in the amount of leakage. It went from around a foot a week to just a couple inches a week. The pond stayed up during the winter without any loss of fish. First time this had happen. Normally it went bone dry. Today the pond is doing ok. It might be losing 2 to 3 inches a week. I can live with this and if need be I can retreat it. I waited this long to share my results to make sure it would hold. Didn't want to post too soon and then have a blow out. Very pleased with the results of the product and if need be I will retreat. This pond is approximately 15 or seconds or less from our back door and the grandkids and kids of our friends enjoy catching fish from it. Right now we have a few channels, hybrid bluegill, and some hybrid stripers in it. They grow very quickly since we feed a couple times a day. Hope your results will be as good or better than mine. Will be contacting TJ soon to place another order for one other pond we have that is showing some increase in leakage. This pond is a lttle futher from the house. Probably 30 to 45 seconds.

Here is some photos of Daves application.





http://vid1027.photobucket.com/albums/y336/joshuaflowers01/Daves/IMG_0959_zpssodbr6bk.mp4

http://vid1027.photobucket.com/albums/y336/joshuaflowers01/Daves/IMG_0944%201_zpsti25alsc.mp4

FP
Sounds like my pond is like yours was. If I turn off the pump, lose a couple inches a day. 1acre, 10 ft deep. Mostly a swimming hole. Did you treat your whole pond? Did you know the level of leak? When left to its own, my drains down to 4' and stops with the same perimeter each time. I am very interested in the Soilfloc product. That was actually what brought me to this forum. I would be very interested in hearing more of your experience if you are willing to share. Thanks
Matt

FishinPal and Joshua Flowers, thanks for your info, pics, and videos. Will be very helpful, if/when I finally get around to applying the soilfloc. Thanks for posting!

Your welcome. This week I will be writing up some tips that Dave, FireIsHot, and I came up with during the application. Hopefully it will make it smoother when anyone applies it on their pond.