Shallow Pond Needs Improving- Pic/video Included - 04/07/20 01:19 AM
Hello, everyone! This is my first post on the forum-- thank you in advance for any help.
So we bought a 7 acre property (on a small river) in SW Colorado and it has a pond on it already...maybe about a half acre in surface area? It is not very deep and freezes solid in dry seasons when it is low and consequently does not support fish. We want to stock it with fish and keep the water clear (Has issues with algae as it is--plan to aerate it and plant lots of water plants). I was told when we bought it that it is fed by a spring, but the flow from the spring is not overally abundant as the pond can get quite low (maybe a foot? in depth).
My close neighbor told us that he dug a 10 ft deep standing pond on his property and irrigates from that. He told me to dig my pond down 10ft down at least on one end and I would hit the water table (I hear the water table is higher than 10ft down, which makes sense with how close we are to a river) and that would fill up the pond, like it did his.
The soil map for the county says the property is 99.5% tefton loam (the SW is not very "clay" like so it least it isn't all sand). I looked up tefton loam and I could only find this about it: "The Tefton series consists of very deep, somewhat poorly drained soils that formed in alluvium derived from sedimentary and igneous rocks. Tefton soils are on flood plains, flood plain steps and valley floors..."
My worry is if I dug down the 10ft and then just created a giant mud hole or made my water retention issues worse (the ground water connection pulling the water out of the pond). I can top off the pond from the well here and there, but would love to create a pond that is deep enough to support fish and irrigate a little out of.
Any thoughts on all this? I will attach a short video I just posted to YouTube of the aerial view of the pond and surrounding area. Any help appreciated! Thank you! [video:youtube]https://youtu.be/_HBSMzCNSgY[/video]
So we bought a 7 acre property (on a small river) in SW Colorado and it has a pond on it already...maybe about a half acre in surface area? It is not very deep and freezes solid in dry seasons when it is low and consequently does not support fish. We want to stock it with fish and keep the water clear (Has issues with algae as it is--plan to aerate it and plant lots of water plants). I was told when we bought it that it is fed by a spring, but the flow from the spring is not overally abundant as the pond can get quite low (maybe a foot? in depth).
My close neighbor told us that he dug a 10 ft deep standing pond on his property and irrigates from that. He told me to dig my pond down 10ft down at least on one end and I would hit the water table (I hear the water table is higher than 10ft down, which makes sense with how close we are to a river) and that would fill up the pond, like it did his.
The soil map for the county says the property is 99.5% tefton loam (the SW is not very "clay" like so it least it isn't all sand). I looked up tefton loam and I could only find this about it: "The Tefton series consists of very deep, somewhat poorly drained soils that formed in alluvium derived from sedimentary and igneous rocks. Tefton soils are on flood plains, flood plain steps and valley floors..."
My worry is if I dug down the 10ft and then just created a giant mud hole or made my water retention issues worse (the ground water connection pulling the water out of the pond). I can top off the pond from the well here and there, but would love to create a pond that is deep enough to support fish and irrigate a little out of.
Any thoughts on all this? I will attach a short video I just posted to YouTube of the aerial view of the pond and surrounding area. Any help appreciated! Thank you! [video:youtube]https://youtu.be/_HBSMzCNSgY[/video]