We built our home somewhat in the miiddle of a 56 acre parcel. On the far SE corner there was a 1/4 acre pond around 8' at the deepest point. We expanded by it an additional 2-1/2 acres that averages 3 feet deep, and 5 more acres of wetlands that, when the outlet valves for the entire area is closed, fills to an average of 8"-10" from rainfall only. It's a dawg training duck hunting wetlands. This is it after I've drawn the water level way down to plant waterfowl forage. The blind that you can see in the background is in the middle of the 8" deep wetlands area when it refills.
Below our house is a 2-1/2 acre pond we expanded from its original 1/2 acre and it averages 8-10 feet deep. Here's a view of a part of that pond looking through the dawg's run at the back of the house
As hot and dry as it's been, I'm losing 3"-4" per week from that pond. It's the one I really want to try to keep relatively full until we get rains again.
That pond and the one metioned above are both about 6-7 feet in elevation below the surface of what I call the holding pond which is located midway between these two ponds. Through the natural drainage of 80 acres or so of our and neighbor's property surrounding it, and the berms we put in to direct that drainage into the holding pond, with it's 18' of depth it stores around 5.8 million gallons.
The holding pond had a 3" PVC pipe installed through one side of it's levee at a 45 degree angle going down to within 2-3 feet from the bottom. That means I can pump roughly 16 acre feet of water or 5.2 million gallons before emptying that pond.
If I've done my math correctly, the 2.5 acre pond is losing approx 244,000 gals per week. Without rainfall and discounting evaporation at the holding pond, it seems to me that I could
transfer all the water being lost for 20 weeks from the holding pond before it went dry also.
I'd prefer not to buy and start running a large capacity pump if I can avoid it. Even a 10,000 gph pump in the 5 hp range would cost $1,000 or so and have to run 24 hours plus per week to keep up with the loss. So, being that I do have a good 6-7 foot grade differential over the 150 yards or so from the holding pond to the lower one, is there a reasonable way to take advantage of that and the existing piping to get a reasonable gravity flow running? Sorry for the long question ... hopefully much shorter answers!
