Haven't been here long. Have seen loads of great information. Great site for a novice like me. My question is.
I currently have a dirt man and crew on my property for 4 days. Almost finished with my 1/3 surface acre pond. The job is not going that smooth due to him being hard headed. But I have that under control. He said he was about finished today and the depth was well over my head with his laser. While he was gone off the day I pulled several strings on it to his waterline flags I get 48" in the center at best and the deepest I measure is 5.5'. This pond was told to be dug as deep as the dirt/ clay would allow.

Question finally is. What would be the shallowest to sustain CNBG & LMB? We found fine white sand 20' so I know it can go deeper than 4'. I just think he is trying to get out of pulling more dirt. I feel it has to be much deeper. 10'-12' range. Sides are sloped staging down and I'm ok with that. And this is in Central Louisiana (hot at heck). Thanks. I'm to the point to pay him to leave and finish myself.

Look at it this way. Anywhere sunlight can get to the pond bottom, underwater plants will grow. Ideal water clarity is anywhere from 18" to 36" on a secchi disc, and plants can get enough sunlight to grow about 18" to 24" deeper than the secchi disc reading.

If you run into a drought, and the pond level drops 24" or so, how much of a pond will you have?

Ponds start to fill in the moment the excavating equipment leaves. Pollen, dust, gras clippings, leaves, etc. all contribute to ponds filling in. Hurricane Ike came thru my area 2 weeks after I finished renovating my pond and washed approximately 3' of sand into my pond.........

If it was my pond, and there was good clay in that area, I'd dig it out to 15' deep, and put four lifts of clay back in, each 6" thick, each properly compacted with a sheepsfoot roller until each lift was knitted together and the sheepsfoor roller started to walk out of that layer. I adhere to the "more is better" mentality (usually).

With it being 1/3 acre, you'll have to do some math. I don't like pond bottoms to be steeper than 1:3 (or 3:1) until you get deeper than 3' of water depth or so. It makes it a lot easier to walk in and out of a pond. So, depending on how wide the pond is, that can limit depth in a smaller pond.

Thank You Esshup for the information.