1/3 acre pond held water with no problems. Drained in August and expanded to 1/2 acre to 3/4 acre. Witn 80 percent of pond 10 ft deep. Really good clay soil but wasn't able to really pack soil due to rain showing up. Very small runoff area, with garage roof downspouts emoting into pond. Very mild winter pond had about 4 ft water into it, I pumped 2 ft of water from creek last week. Since that time pond has dropped 2-3 inches. My question is , is it ground saturation or not. Need about 37 inches till completely full. Been very dry winter in north east Ohio , not a lot of snow or rain. Is this a normal thing or should I be concerned?

It has been a rather dry winter here compared to normal. When my pond refilled from doing work on it (was drianed for two years), it took a good year before I noticed the reduction in considerable drops after it would reach full pool, and that was wet years.

Give it some time. Unless you haven't stocked it yet. Then you may consider draining and compacting, so you don't have to redo when it is stocked.

I would guess the 2-3 inches is re-saturation of the surrounding soils. Is your watershed large enough to support the increase in water volume? If you pumped in water from a creek that runs year round, you likely pumped in unwanted fish species, unless a good filter was used.

Since you said the expanded area was not compacted, you may be better off long term to drain it, let it dry some and compact before re-filling with filtered water from the creek.

Hkbwpro111 Online content


Registered: 06/13/13
Posts: 29
Loc: Farmdale, ohio
Update on enlarged pond. Seems to be holding after pumping water from creek to reach 4 inches to full pool on March 10. It initially dropped 7 total inches so it's 11 inches from full after about a month or 2 . Soil can be seen wet above water line. Seems to be holding better rising some after a rain with a slow drop. It's now 3 months later with not a very wet spring . Need to enlarge drainage area in the back. Pond is 3/4 acre deepest point 13 foot.
Question I have is the wet soil above water line , is that just saturation. And does it usually take awhile for a new pond to settle down. I pumped a lot of water in March raised pond 6 ft ...

Mine still has a large wet area above the water line and it's been seven months since it was first substantially full. Plus, I am still losing about 3/4 to 7/8 inch a day unless it rains.

On hot dry days you can lose up to .25 to .50 inches a day on your pond. So you do the math.... at a half inch a day that's 3 inches from Monday to Saturday.... in one week... it could be from both.. saturation and evaporation.... That's a foot a month or 6 inches a month on the light side... just in evaporation...

RC

With the wind we have and our waterfall I can loose a half and inch per day easy. Running aeration at night now from 2-7am.

Saturation/wicking never stops.