I plan to build a pond on a live spring with a constant flow of about 50 gpm in a 20 ft deep ravine and I'm concerned that that flow will be a problem during construction. A temporary dam can be built at the head of the pond but 72K gallons of water every 24 hours seems like a lot. I don't see how the spring can be diverted due to the lay of the land. I guess a pump with a long (100 yd ?) discharge hose could move the water past the pond site? Do I have a problem and what can be done about it?

Anyway to divert the flow during construction?

Yes, it is a problem. You cannot compact water-saturated clay.

Since you are building in a ravine, your pond will almost certainly require a well-compacted core trench. Any significant water in the bottom of the core trench will make it impossible to achieve proper compaction.

I like your idea of an upstream temporary dam. A gravity drain is much easier to keep running than a pump. The 4" corrugated flexible drain tile pipe is only $0.75/foot at our local Menards. With only a 5' drop that pipe would handle about 180 gpm of flow from your spring.

One option would be to run that kind of pipe around one side of your pond construction site to a point in the ravine downstream of your dam location. When you are done with most of the construction on the opposite side, lift the inlet side of the pipe to let the water drain out, and then move the pipe to the other side of your pond construction site.

Even outside of the core trench, wet ground on the job site just slows everything down. Building a good water bypass should quickly pay for itself by saving hours of low-productivity time on the heavy equipment.

Further, you do need some water to moisten the clay to the proper water content prior to the compaction of each lift. Your upstream pond could be the source when the construction crew needs water on site.



Crazy idea alert!

Many people on Pond Boss would love to have a small pond upstream of their main pond. There are multiple benefits.

The first is to use it as a silt settlement pond. As soon as your main pond fills with water, it will start losing some depth over time due to silt and muck. You can design your upstream pond to catch a significant portion of that silt. Ten years in the future, you could cheaply clean out the upstream pond and then let it protect your main pond for another ten years.

The second use could be even more beneficial. You could use the upstream pond as a forage pond. Grow out minnows in the first two years of life for your main pond, open the valve on a 4" or 6" pipe, and drain that abundant forage into your main pond.

A few years later you could put in a few pairs of brooder BG and when the spawned BG have grown to the optimum size for your bass, flush them into the main pond. (Just an example, since I don't know your fish goals.)

Good luck on your pond project. A nice pond in a 20' deep ravine sounds like it could be a real beauty!

P.S. There are lots of very knowledgeable Pond Boss people in E. Texas. You should be able to get tons of local, expert advice when you start asking questions about fish stocking, etc.

a spring to yourpond is golden - IMO hire someone who is an expert at this stuff -I know many people who have tried do it yourself and regret it -

Could you make a dam downstream of the spring to create a say 1/4 ac pond, get the elevation high enough that it will be higher than the proposed pond, THEN route the water away (around) the proposed pond area using the higher elevation to keep the water out of the lower pond basin while it's constructed? Then once the main pond is completed, just divert that upper pond down a waterfall (say 4') to fall into the main pond. Use upper pond for forage fish or as a grow out pond for the main pond.

Depending on the Spring water temp, you might be able to have trout all year long if the water temp in the upper pond is below 70°F all year long. Cecil keeps trout alive all year long with 50 gpm into 1/2 ac pond, but the ground water temp here is 53°F.

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Seems that a dam with a small pond upstream of the main pond site will work with a long 4" corrugated plastic pipe to take the small pond overflow past the main pond site during construction.

Perfect! Keep us appraised of the progress!

My pond is complete and a small temporary upstream dam kept the water out.

Awesome, these old goats on this site are loaded with some really good advice,,, sometimes! nobody lives as long as they have and doesn't learn something!

Congrats, TEC!

However, you know the Pond Boss rules - pictures or it didn't really happen.

Hopefully, you built a beauty and you were able to handle all of the curveballs you had to face during actual construction.

Now you get to move onto the fish stocking plan. Those always draw some good responses on Pond Boss.

P.S. Did your spring keep running throughout the summer so far?

Lots of bodies of water are drying up in Texas. If you are in the parts of E. Texas that are still in drought, AND your spring is still running, then it sounds like you have an excellent pond situation!

I haven't figured out how to post pictures here.

My spring runs year round at about 50 GPM. The water level in my pond rose a foot or two this last week. I know I'm lucky to have that.

Posting on Pond Boss typically requires a few steps.

However, sometimes the photo hosting process develops a glitch. When a new member is trying to post photos and the glitch is the factor that stops them, I suspect most think they are doing something wrong and give up.

That is really good news!

Your pond will soon reach normal pool elevation and your pond life is always going to have good water exchange.

I signed up with Imgur and downloaded some photos there but can't get them to Pond Boss.

Bummer! Probably the glitch then.

Maybe try again when you see current photos coming up in some thread you are reading?