Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Soil questions Is my pond leaking?

I just bought this land a few months ago. In spring the pond was at its banks. It is only fed from our gutters and a couple acres of runoff from the backyard. I don't know if the July heat is just evaporating it quickly, or if it is leaking. Right now it is down at least four (sloped) feet.

The banks are a silty mud that my boots sink deep into, and the water is basically muddy looking. I suspect there is no clay to seal it, that it was just a hole filled with water, but I don't know how to tell for certain. If it was sealed, would the clay be visible, or hidden in the depths? It is a small 1/4 acre pond with steep banks, so in this case would they normally only put clay at the very bottom, where it is easier to compress?

If there are any pond contractors that could come and take a look at it on the North side of Indy then PM me. Thanks.

Todd:

Go to your local big box store. They have aluminum yardsticks. Put one on a stake and put it in the water. Write down the water level reading. Take a magic marker, and make a mark near the top of a 5 gal bucket. Fill it with water up to the line. Set the bucket next to the pond. If the pond water drops faster than the bucket water, then the pond is leaking, or it has a lot of tree roots in it and the trees are sucking out the water.

That is sound advice, thanks! I do have two good sized trees on one bank, so that could be a factor.

That is good advice shup.. All my time here I don't think I've ever heard that method.. kinda like a common sense approach exactly why I would of never figured that out lol..

Thanks

Even better is to use a concrete mixing tub as a bucket has a lot of surface area and cools relativly fast at night compared to pond water. Warm water to cool air evaporates quickly. Also a bucket can block wind over the surface of the water, hindering evaporation like the pond. Last summer I tried both, and the concrete tub lost 2x or more water than the bucket, but neither lost nearly as much as the pond so it more or less, proved my pond seeps a lot.

Sheesh typing on tablet in bed is a pain.

Yep, larger trees can drink quite a lot of water! Then when you get rid of them, the roots rot out and leave holes in important places if not removed properly.