Ive been reading the forum for awhile but finally decided to see if i can get some advise on my pond I had it built about 20 years ago
and it never filled all the way to the overflow dont know if I have a leak or what it maintains about 7 foot deep but if it would go to the overflow
it would be about 10 foot deep any suggestions

If it has NEVER filled in 20 years, then it is likely that you do have a leak.

However, there are different ways to leak.

Does your pond fill with surface run-off water, or is it a groundwater pond?

surface run off

What is the size of your watershed supplying the pond? How large is the pond (in acres)?

Do you have a source of supplemental water? (It would probably help to locate the leak if you could use a trash pump to top off your pond for a few days.)

Is the water level at the overflow if you observe the pond immediately following a big rain?

.125 of acre no supplemental water it has never reached overflow

Im no expert but if it has never been full its not a leak problem. My pond will over flow over the top of my damn when we get a good rain. A pond that size should be able to fill up pretty ease with a good rain even with a leak. My best guess is you dont have a big enough water shed to fill it up.

A lot of "it depends".

If it is a groundwater pond, it may be at its natural level based on the groundwater level. If it is a runoff pond has it ever recieved enough inflow of runoff water to fill it? Could be a leak at a gravel layer.

Several possibilities depending on the pond design, runoff area compared to pond size, etc.

Hello and welcome to the forum.

I help folks nationwide assess leak situations and am happy to chat sometime. Start measuring your daily vertical water loss with yard stick or other measuring device - this is critical data and will direct all future actions.

As a Pond Boss volunteer my time is free to this community - feel free to reach out anytime tj@hudlandmgmt.com or PM me.

TJ

I dont live close to my pond to due daily measurements thanks

its not a ground level pond its on the side of a hill

hardkill9,

I can estimate the watershed drainage from a topographic map, if you want. It sounds like that might be the problem.

Don't send location information on the open forum. If you want, send it in a private message by clicking on my name and then on Private Message. Directions such as: roughly 4.5 miles northwest of anytown, and then 0.3 miles north of the intersection of P Road and 23 Road. My pond is about 0.1 miles east of the county road.

Directions of that nature should be good enough for me to find your pond.

You say it hasn't filled up to the overflow in 20 yrs, that's kind of strange that you have never had a big rain event at some point in time that filled it up, even without adequate watershed. Is it holding at a certain elevation? as in when you do have some rain water that brings it up even just a little, will it stay there at that elevation till evaporation or something lowers it or does it go straight back down to a consistent elevation that it appears to stay at for the most part, or does it fluctuate quite a bit all the time?
As for the water loss amounts in a 24 hr period, I would and have stuck a yardstick in the water to check elevations daily, if you are not available on a daily bases to check it you can set up a game camera directed toward the yardstick and have it take a time lapse photo on a 24 hr basis. that information is pretty huge in establishing a pattern of water elevation rise or loss which will be valuable information for a professional like Teehjaeh55 to figure out whats going on. Id guess you have a gravel seem that is draining it down to a certain level and probably not allowing it to fill past said level, but that's just a guestimate because I have no idea what kind of soils you are dealing with at your site.
Good Luck!

it does fill up higher but eventually goes back down but never to the overflow

hardkill,

When said like that it sounds like there is a level that has become the normal pool ... when it rains heavily the water rises but never overflows and settles back to normal pool fairly quickly.

If this is so, the seal is good at normal pool and the leak(s) at least begin near the water line. Look for exposed rock seems. I agree with gehajake, it sounds very unusual to never reach the overflow. It may be a pretty big leak. If it going out at a focused area, a whirlpool could develop when the water is high giving away its location. If a broader leak look for other signs like rock seams or sandy areas. Once you've located where the leak is you know where to focus the remedy

hardkill,

Thanks for the location info. That looks like a beautiful place you have!

The watershed above the pond appears to be approximately 2 acres. That should be enough keep the pond reasonably full for most of the year at your geographic location.

However, it appears that the natural drainage off of your hilltop goes almost due north. Your pond may not be capturing all of the rainfall in your watershed. Eyes (or a survey level) on the ground always beats large scale topographic maps!

Do you think your surface run-off all goes to the pond, or do you think a significant amount bypasses the pond to the west?

Further, I agree with a lot of the posters above that state it appears that you have a large leak that occurs essentially at your normal pool level.

Your geographic area typically has lots of exposed limestone that has karst features and fractures. Either of which would be capable of leaking badly.

When the pond was built, did they reach bedrock in any spots? If they did, then it appears that there was not a sufficient clay blanket packed over the bedrock to seal off all of the potential water flow channels in the rock.

My advice would be to send as much of your available water as possible to the pond. You may need to create a berm to channel all of the surface rainfall to the pond, rather than having it flow down the slope past the pond.

You should also follow the advice about monitoring your pond this year to evaluate the leak. If you do confirm a leak at about the "normal" water level, then you have several options. If you have clay available, then you can excavate the pond to the leak and pack with clay. Another option is to use Soilfloc as a sealant. teehjaeh is one of the experts on that topic. You might read up on some of the Soilfloc threads, and then contact him directly. [It is a good product that swells in volume to stop leaks. However, I don't believe it is capable of stopping a leak through a large crevice in limestone bedrock. (IF that is your problem.)]

If none of those options are feasible, then you could re-grade a little around the pond and design your projects to utilize the existing "normal" water level as your design level.

Good luck on your pond project

no i dont think all the water goes to the pond the south west side of the pond is the natural bank and that is where i can see some rocks and it would be the place i would guess it leaks from

Thanks for all the suggestions

You are very welcome for the help.

I think everyone on the forum wants to see new people get their problems fixed - so we can subsequently see posted pictures of happy families enjoying their ponds!

Give TJ a call, he can help ya.