Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? Enlarging an established pond

Novice pond guy here. This past fall I purchased a home with an approx 1/4 acre pond on it. The fishing is excellent for my kids with perch, hybrid bg, and bass. PLUS, plenty of turtles. There is some room to enlarge the pond, creating a kidney type shape to approx 1/2 acre. My question is, what process do I need to do involving this. I figured I'd have to rework the dam. However, can I add on to the dam creating the outline and then the final would remove the existing dam? Or should I drain first first, then build again? I know there's a lot of questions, I just want to get this correct when I do it. I figured it would be a November project. As from what previous land owner stated, its been there for 40 years, so I figured that I'd probably need to work on the bottom of the pond as well. Anyway, any info and advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a bunch. BTW, I'm in SW MO if that helps anything. -Jack

Welcome Jack. My puddle is 1/4 acre too and I also thought about expanding to 1/2 acre kidney shape. From what I gathered from my post a while back, it would be cheaper/better to redo the whole thing versus simply expanding. Also, as you mentioned, with the pond being 40 years old, I'm sure the bottom could use some clearing.

The experts will be along shortly with more info.

-Brad

I can speak from a bit of experience here...I took a smaller pond (actually 2 smaller ponds) and made a bigger one, one of them was 50 years old. My biggest regret 5+ years later is not getting a bunch of the sludge out before building the new one. My recommendation would be to bust the dam on the old one and get the bottom scraped out before building the new one. I'm dealing with a variety of annoyances because I didn't do this - shallow spots where I don't want them, excess plant growth due to the nutrient load from the sludge, not to mention the sludge itself. Nothing Earth shattering but I wish I'd been able to start with a clean bottom on the whole thing.

Thanks for the replies. Yes, I found out from the original land owner (always been in their family) that the pond was around when he was 3 (looking at over 40 years). I figured I would have the pond cleaned then add on. The pond is full, which it hasn't been in a few years (we've had a wet spring this year) All of it is from runoff, which, once it is drained I'll have to figure that out so that it'll fill back up. Maybe draw up a LOT of rain turtles so the rain will come once completed. LOL. Anyway, Got to get a couple of more figures to see what this is gonna cost to enlarge it. Anyway, I have ordered some FHM, 3 grass carp and 25 cc to go ahead and put in the pond, just in case if my plans get sidetracked this fall. LOL. Not sure if its correct or not, but was figuring to add on the pond in November? Is there a better time to add to a pond (size wise) Thanks for the help and info - Jack

Jacklegg,
All I can share is my personal experience with regards to enlarging a pond. We purchased a place in East Texas the summer of 2013. There was a small pond on the property mostly used to water livestock. The pond was ~13 years old, ~7' deep, the water was clear, but heavily stained. I had the pond drained and mucked out before expansion began. There was a 6" siphon system at the dam and it was working very well, so I saw no reason to disturb it. We mucked out 5' of sludge out of the bottom of the pond. I don't think I've smelled anything quite like that in my entire life. I would highly recommended getting the old pond mucked out prior to expansion. My pond was expanded to a little more than a 1/2 acre and is kidney shaped as well. At times, I wonder if I should've replaced the siphon overflow system, but it continues to work well. I have a post in the archives entitled," SE Texas Pond Renovation " if you can find it. Good luck and let me know how it works out.