Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site Pond leak?

My pond is 2 years old now. When we let the water in it filled in about 2 1/2 months.The pond is 1 1/4 acres and 13 feet deep. A small spring that flows into a man made creek helps to fill it. This past summer was very dry here in Ohio and it dropped about 5 feet. This didn`t concern me much due to weather and every pond around was very low. Now the fall rains are here and it is filling but, I have noticed it dropped about and inch in 2 days after a light rain was around. There is water behind one side of my pond but could be runoff. What do you guys think? Time to panick?

FWIW, My 1 1/4 acre, 15 feet deep pond held water better each year for about four years after renovation and filling. It was explained to me that there is a wicking effect at the shoreline, and the sub-basin needed time to fully saturate to create resistance to seepage. The first year after filling it wasn't unusual for me to lose 1.25 inches per day, then it went to 1, then .75 and now it loses about .5 inches per day when the weather is dry (which is always). I'm not sure I'd be panicking just yet, but I'm far from being the expert on such things.

I'm not sure how much I agree with the theory that Bruce presents. For starters,,, all earthen ponds leak; it is a matter of how much. Ideally when a pond is lined with clay, the purpose of the clay as a liner is to stop, impede, or dramatically slow the water flow out of the pond. In my experiences with well built, clay lined and sheepsfoot packed ponds, with good UNIFORM clay liners, you will get little if any seepage right away when the pond is full. The good well packed clay barrier acts as a seal to hold in water. It does the job.

Occassionally in my area, when a field drain tile is missed and not properly cut off it acts to draw water out of a pond. Porous patches of soil in the upper pond layers are also pathways for water seepage. Water can sometimes seep BETWEEN the sheets or layers of clay that have been packed with just a bulldozer. The well built dugout ponds in our area, even have clay liners that are 8 ft to 10 ft wide/thick (bulldozer blade wide) from the root zone up to the surface. Water has a hard time seepng out of thes ponds when built properly. Well built DUGOUT ponds in NW Ohio clay soils will lose only 10"-14" of water during a fairly dry summer and around 14"-20" in a drought summer. More than that is leakage in my opinion.

In some leakage ponds there can be a certain amount of suspended clay and or sediment that gets pulled and filtered into the areas of the bottom that are seeping out water. This action can cause the seepage to slow down and "somewhat seal" those areas. The success of this is real "iffy". This is what has probably happened in Bruce's example above and he got a little lucky. However, if the porosity of the seepage area allows suspended clay-sediment particulates to pass through, then obviously the seepage or leakage will not stop or slow down; at least not much. If you are losing 5 ft of water each summer I would conclude that you have a substantial leak. I think the contractor missed something in the building process IF there are adequate clay soils in your area AND IF this is a dug out pond. Ponds that are built with dams across a ravine are likely to leak due to inconsitancy of soils in the pond basin and sides. You dig a hole, and you build a pond.

If I were you, I'd listen to Bill and not me.

I couldn't 'dozer myself out of a wet paper bag.

I'm gonna save that one.

Thanks for you input guys. I feel most of my water lose during the summer was due mainly to 90deg days and absolutly no rain. During a 4 month run I had 1"-2" of rain and 3/4" was during one rain.

Evaporation can be 1/4" per day on hot breezy dry summer days; 7" per month.

Pond builder coming by Monday to see what we can do to fix the problem. I will get photo`s Monday to show what I am dealing with.

After my last reply I thought of something.If I add a dye to the pond would this help me find my leaking spot?

Dye won't help you find a leak, but it will tell you where the water comes from...or not. If it comes out blue, it came from the pond. If it comes out clear...

Thanks Bob, That was my thought. I think I know where the leak is but this theory may help me find the beginning of my leak.I have some run-off in the same area I am looking at. My new copy of PB made it today and I may be looking to try bentonite on a stretch of my pond wall.

My pond builder stopped by today and he feels we have a leak also. The leak appears to be near the top of the water line. We built a ledge about 60 feet long for a gill bedding area. He wants to try bentonite (his idea - same as mine). A local farm feed store will get it for me at a rate $9.00 for 50lbs. The only thing that I am not sure of is the way he wants to apply it. He wants to broadcast it. He did the math and says 4-5 bags will do it. Being the way I am I ordered 10 bags. So my question is - o.k. to broadcast? I was thinking of draining it down 4-5 feet and till it in. Maybe I can do this later if this doesn`t seal it completly?

I think Cecil bought it for $5.00 per bag!
Maybe you could talk them down on the price?

Broadcasting a few bags of bentonite over a submerged seeping area is probably at least as effective waving a magic wang over the area. I shoveled a ton of bentonite over a dam area that was seeping with virtually no improvement in the leak.

I'm not an expert on bentonite but I don't think there are any. I have never heard of broadcasting bentonite giving satisfactory results. When you toss it out on the surface of the water, it tends to float and go to the sides of the pond. There it sits and does nothing about finding a leak.

I think bentonite has a chance once you identify the source of the leak and apply it to the actual leak.

It all depends on the situation. We had one pond that had a leak through a sand in the pond bottom. Not a serious leak but more than we wanted. So we added the stuff dry over the spot area. It sank and moved toward the pull of the leak and formed a seal by mixing into the sand. We have also mixed it in 5 gal. buckets and poured it into the pond bottom area by using an 8in. PVC pipe with the outlet about 1 ft. off the bottom.

Squeeky, when you wrote "at least as effective waving a magic wang over the area," did you mean wang or wand?

There's a big difference there. As most men know, waving a magic wang over things has equally cured the woes of the world as well as caused the woes of the world.

Sunil, did you dilute your DMD last night, maybe with some JD?

Actually, I did mean wand, but I have to write fast and I don't have the luxury of previewing my posts since my ISP allows only a few minutes of inactivity before disconnected.

I was a little "out there" last night, but it was Thursday night. You know, almost the weekend.

But DMD? Never, never.

Sunil- Where can you get those magic wangs? I think I need to wave one while doing a rain dance.

Squeeky- They have some programs that will send out a ping signal every minute and keep your connection alive as long as you want. If you are interested let me know what operating system and browser you use and I will find one for you.

PFF:

That's not rain.

My thought is this. Why not try. If I spend a 100.00 bucks and it fixes great, if not, I drain it down this summer and mix in the soil of the bank. I might even try the liquid sealer seen in the magazine. The pond is staying pretty full now but I know its leaking and its driving me crazy.

If you can find the leak, you can fix it.

For lined ponds I have heard of swimming pool leak testers being used. They use a probe on the outside of the pond and send an electrical current into the water. Theory is that if there is a leak, the current will follow the leak and complete the circuit. I am guessing that this would have very limited applications for dirt ponds.