Two weeks of pumping. Goal is to the bottom of the inlet pipe. I'm hoping 1 more week will get me half way and might turn it off for awhile and see what it does. Plus, I'm hating to see my electric bill this month. :-) Pump is still going good. I turn it off once a week to go down and wipe the drain sock off then plug her right back in.
Thanks Fishin! I did do a calculation awhile back using the current gpm vs pond size and it seemed to be right on. Keep in mind though, I am kind of guessing on pond size based off of sat image from planimeter. Also, my gpm measurement wasn't scientific. Just a five gallon bucket test. But I do have some data to share that might cause some debate. :-) Evaporation rates and new pond seepage. About a week ago I guess? I had to turn pump off so I decided to let it sit during the day for 12 hours off. From 6 am to 6pm the pond went down exactly 9/16". At first I thought that was pretty bad but the weather that day was extreme and i will will allow just a little for seepage in to dry dam and surrounding soils. It was 97 full sun all day. 10 mph wind with 15 to 20 gusts and 40 percent humidity. So with all of that said, I don't think that was too bad but nowhere close to proving anything at this point really. I might have already posted this but not sure, when I first pumped in to this pond before knowing for sure if it leaked I got it to about two feet or so above where it is now. That was pumping for a bout 3 months straight at 18gpm. Eventually it got a to a point the 18 gpm would not raise it anymore. So that tells me at a point about 2 feet where I am now, the pond used to leak 18gpm. So I think that is a good benchmark to keep in mind when I post more numbers. At 18 gpm and .6 acre the pond should drop 1.6" in a day. So if I get it above where it was and I am not dropping 1.6", it is better. How much? We will see I guess. :-) I am not getting my hopes up this time. This pond has burned me before. :-)
If you use the site below to calculate evap rates for .6 acre pond, I actually lost less that test day than it says I should of but I don't know if its accurate.
Good to hear you are still gaining pond elevation. When ballpark calculations are the best you can do, it is nice to have the data still fit within the ballpark.
I agree that the 9/16" loss doesn't sound too bad.
Since that pumping break was made subsequent to the water elevation rising, some of your water loss was due to the wicking of water out of the pond and into the dry soil that had just recently come into contact with water.
You can easily observe this phenomenon once you resume filling the pond. Depending on the clay content of your banks, you will probably see wet soil roughly 1-8" above the water elevation.
It's still going up, slowly but surely. About 2" a day now. Which is about right for a .7 acre surface area and 30 gpm going in. It is going much slower now that it has gained size. I'm guessing it is about .6 to .7 acre right now with a 10 to 11 feet depth. So, still just have to wait and see. I think we decided to let the pump run one more week until next Friday, that will be 4 weeks. I think it should be around 100 to 135 dollars for electricity costs for that. Not bad considering that is like 1.2 million gallons of water. Attaching some more photos. One is a new drone photo that you can see how much it is filling in. Others are from different angles around the pond to give everyone a better idea of what we have going on. There are also a couple of my well/aerator cover. Thought someone might like the idea. It does a nice job of hiding everything and does ok for sound. Big culvert with chicken wire screwed to outside then coated with bag cement by hand. Bought the lid for it then used an old pallet for the top. Looks like an old well siting there. Update tomorrow for the weekly pic. Then one more week of pumping, then my anxiety starts. :-) When I do these types of projects I always like to keep Edison's quote in mind.
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work"
3 weeks of pumping. Some of that grass is in well over 3 feet of water, not sure how its still alive and standing. One more week and I'll start posting results.
Well it's been two days since I turned off the pump, and have good and bad news, I guess. Bad news it is still going down. Good news is you folks are going to get season 3 of the $#@& show. :-). So right now we are in a drought so keep that in mind. Two days in a row I have lost 1.25". So, .25 for evaporation and I would say 1" to seepage. I went down to the spring behind the house where I was pumping 6gpm when we first started filling. It appears to be running no faster than it was when pond was empty. This is a good sign because that spring has a fork in it. Before when the pond was really full, you would see the left side flow much faster than right. Now the left has maybe 1 gpm flowing. I am attaching a photo I already posted with some additions. The black lines are the springs that are about 30 ft below pond area. You can see the fork I mentioned. Now for the next part. When I was working behind the dam, prepping a ditch for the new outlet. I figured why use 8" pipe all the way down the hill if I can just keep it on top. No clogging that way either. Well I graded everything up and a few days later I noticed a wet spot in the newly graded dry dirt. Went down there and there was a crawdad hole but I wanted to see what was below so I dug down about 18" and it was all good clay so I covered it back up but it came back without the crawdad hole. Now, there is a spring behind the dam that has been there for years because there are some old blocks that someone used to dam it up years ago for livestock I assume. Blocks look at least 75 years old. Years ago I traced that spring by digging it up and it appeared to come from the hill adjacent to dam. I tapped that spring and I send about 2gpm spring water down to the small pond I lined. Now I know my builder would have cored the dam but I wonder if he didn't go deep enough? I think it is pressing down on the bottom of the pond and going in to the spring. I have ordered some fluorescent dye and I want to confirm this before I go any further. I drained this pond and reworked back in 2015? After letting it dry for quite awhile there was a spot close to where inside toe of dam meets floor that would not dry out, so I just refilled it because I was able to get some of the muck out of that area and it appears to be solid clay, but that doesn't mean there wasn't sand a few feet below that.
Possible options.
1. First trace dye to confirm.
2. Drain and line entire pond. A lot of work, especially if it doesn't need it.
3. Drain and partially line if I can pin point location of seepage. The tarps have seemed to stop all leakage in to the spring south of the pond. It also seemed to slow the leak down from the original 1.6" 24hr drop to about an inch.
4. Contact TJ and try the SeekLeak.
Will update when I get any new info. I am also posting pics of the ditch i dug and the wet spot I now have. This is the first time i have seen this wet spot. I think i will use it as a detector. I will monitor pond depth vs. moisture content of spot maybe. I wonder if i closed the easiest path for water to go to now it is being forced out something more dense?
The circle in the one photo is the wet spot behind dam now.
