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I have been a nearly silent learner on here for a couple years now, and thought that I finally have something worthwhile to contribute to the vast amount of knowledge and collegiality that is here.

I am nearing completion on a 1.25 acre excavated (not dammed) pond in Maine. It will be used primarily for fishing with a little swimming and ice skating and is adjacent to our yard and the focal point of our 55+ acres. The estimates to get this done were $160k, which was shocking to a simple guy like me. For those with dammed ponds, it seems the cost can be exponentially less, but moving 16,000 yds3 of material is terribly costly. I had no experience taking on a project of this magnitude, but I have a strong work ethic (and don't have $160k burning a hole in my pocket), so I took on the project DIY. I bought a 2000 John Deere 160LC and a Morooka MST2200 (12 ton dump truck on tracks) and got started about a year ago.

I track my progress by dump truck loads, which I expect is about 9-10 yds3 per load, and I've moved just about 1200 loads of material so far and estimate that I have about 300 to go. Thankfully none of it will need to be trucked off the property. After about a foot of good topsoil, there is dense grey clay as far as I've dug (max depth 20'). I haven't encountered any ledge, sand veins or springs. The pond is fed by watershed and ground water and seemed to fill up as fast as I can dig it. I estimate at this point that I've spent about 40% of my time moving water and not dirt, so I've come up with some strategies to mitigate the water that I thought could be useful to others.

I bought two 9hp gas powered 4" semi trash water pumps that will move 25k gallons/hr each. I am currently running only one at a time thankfully. What has worked best for me is to put the pump in a small plastic "bass boat" that is tied off via ropes to opposite shores so it is centered over the deepest part of the pond. The boat hovers over the deepest end and goes down as the water level goes down.

The pumps came with a very small gas tank, so I went to YouTube and ultimately added a 3 gallon auxiliary gas tank to get longer run times. I've also found that running it at 2/3 throttle vs full throttle more than doubles my run time and doesn't decrease my flow rate much or at all. By making those two changes, I can run my water pump all night, top it off with fuel in the morning, and it's pumping for me as I'm away at work.

I found the 20' long intake line to be a beast to manage, so I built an intake out of heavy walled PVC and attached it with a Fernco fitting to the intake side of the pump. The discharge line is 4" lay flat line.

It seems that many fellow pondmeisters don't have enough water; I've been battling the opposite. For anyone else in a similar situation, I hope this works for you. Hopefully these attachments come through.

My shovel


My wheelbarrow


Water pump set up in the boat



If you're having trouble priming the pump, fill it with water, add something like this, and when you start it up open the valve. It will vent any air trapped in the pump first, then will start shooting water out. Close the valve and it should be pumping properly.

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