Just want to bump the question back to the top, can the pond be drained and then a sheep’s foot be used? Or would have the sheep foot had to be used when creating the pond from the beginning?
That is a difficult question to answer with confidence. (Just because we don't know the actual circumstances under the dirt.)
How deep is your pond? Some small ponds of 10' or less can be sealed by compacting a 12" clay blanket (usually in two lifts) across the bottom and the banks of the pond.
If your core trench is the main seal of your pond, then that cannot be compacted by running over the top now with a sheepsfoot. It would have to be excavated out, and then put back in as 6" layers with compaction on each layer.
Did you try the "clay test" I suggested from your pond banks? 12" is the recommended thickness of a clay blanket. If your banks have good clay content, and you wet them to the proper water content, then you MIGHT be able to seal the pond with a sheepsfoot at this stage which would probably create about a 6" compacted blanket..
Just want to bump the question back to the top, can the pond be drained and then a sheep’s foot be used? Or would have the sheep foot had to be used when creating the pond from the beginning?
That is a difficult question to answer with confidence. (Just because we don't know the actual circumstances under the dirt.)
How deep is your pond? Some small ponds of 10' or less can be sealed by compacting a 12" clay blanket (usually in two lifts) across the bottom and the banks of the pond.
If your core trench is the main seal of your pond, then that cannot be compacted by running over the top now with a sheepsfoot. It would have to be excavated out, and then put back in as 6" layers with compaction on each layer.
Did you try the "clay test" I suggested from your pond banks? 12" is the recommended thickness of a clay blanket. If your banks have good clay content, and you wet them to the proper water content, then you MIGHT be able to seal the pond with a sheepsfoot at this stage which would probably create about a 6" compacted blanket..
Pond should end up somewhere between 12-15 ft deep if it ever fills lol. I watched a guy on YouTube do a clay test and wonder your thoughts on it. He took some clay from as close to the bottom as he could get and let it dry out, and then he had a bucket with holes drilled in the bottom of it, then add the clay to the bottom of the bucket and added a little bit of water for moisture and compacted in the bottom of the bucket. Once the clay was wet and packed, he added water above the clay and marked the waterline, and then watched it over several days or weeks to see how much the waterline dropped. I would assume this test would be more about quality of the clay than the compaction, but I would like to hear your thoughts.
You could even try two buckets and compare the sealing ability with poor compaction. Do one bucket as you describe above. Do the other bucket with no compaction (or moderate, dry compaction) and see how they compare.
One problem with the bucket test is that it does NOT measure the sealing against the entire water column. A 12' deep pond will put six times as much hydrostatic pressure against the clay seal compared to the seal in a bucket under only 2' of water.
That difference is significant. There are some people that have bottom leaks in their pond that lose water when the pond is full, but when it is down 5' the leak stops.
Also, IMO the bucket test overestimates the sealing capacity. I suspect 1" of good clay-bearing material would seal a bucket. That is partly due to the sides of the bucket preventing lateral movement during compaction. In a pond bottom, that is not the case.
Hope that helps. Good luck on getting your pond back into top form.
For reference information. Most ponds in north mid-west are full dug ponds. When a good pond builder constructs a pond up here in Ohio, they over-dig the final finished pond size 8 ft wider than the planned finished pond size. This 8ft is the standard width of the blade width of a big bulldozer (often a D-8). They remove all this top layer down to 6ft deep where farm drain tile, root materials and loose poor dirt materials are located to make sure they dig down to a depth to find good clay. Then they continue removing the center belly clay of the pond and bring this clay material up to the outside 8 ft wide band around the pond top outer final size. This clay material is then spread in 4"-6" thick layers around the outside 8ft band where they compact the layer lifts with usually a sheepsfoot roller. When completed the pond has an 8 ft thick compacted good clay pond liner. These ponds when done properly rarely leak and hold water very well.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 09/06/2406:56 PM.
aka Pond Doctor & Dr. Perca Read Pond Boss Magazine - America's Journal of Pond Management
Attached are some picks that I took, I put a stick in the ground at the water edge on Tuesday and then the same picture today Sunday so about 5 days. Thoughts, we had 2-3 days of 85-90 degrees and the last 2 were in the 70-75 degree range.
Looks like it’s lost somewhere between 2-3 ft at the edge in 5 days.
Bummer.
2-3 ft of "edge" is not our normal measuring standard. True inches of vertical depth would be more accurate. Can you mark some inch indicators on a piece of white PVC or something, and walk out on some scrap wood and stick it vertically in your pond water column?
That being said, it does look like you lost several "vertical inches" in 5 days. That is probably more water loss than just your evaporation rate. If true, then you are still fighting a leak.
