Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction Hello from England!

Hi

I’m so glad to have found your forum and for the opportunity to learn more about pond management. I’m really interested in ecology and understanding about soil and hydrology. I’m interested in fish and forestry (only one of which I have in abundance unfortunately). I’m very much a DIY’er out of necessity and I’m (just) about young enough to give most things a go when it comes to some of the tasks I’m aware maybe required of someone renovating a water body. I’m new to the game of managing approximately 1 acre of spring fed water on the leeward side of a clay ridge.

Our ponds were once a single brick pit but inter-war (WW1 & 2) were made into 3 lakes each connected by a drain pipe. A sluice to the highway surface water drain was installed in the late 60’s. We’ve owned the site 5 years. Before then it was home to one of the most exclusive fishing clubs in the county. However the site seems to have lost its mojo a couple of decades ago and we bought it to help.

We’re hoping to restore the waters. Any advice on the issues we face would be very much appreciated. Thanks in advance and a happy Christmas and healthy new year to you all!

Hope that’s a sufficient introduction. I’m sure I will have left some stuff out.
I really do need help. I’lll be a ready and willing actor on any and all sound and reasonable advice.
Best wishes

Welcome to the forum andMerryChristmas! I like the history of your ponds.The more information you can give about your ponds and the problems you're having or things you don't like, the better the pros here can help. Pictures are good too.

Ditto! Welcome to the forum.

Welcome from across the pond...

Welcome!

What are your goals for the pond? Does it already have fish?

Hi Bobss, esshup RStringer and anthropic

Great to hear from you. I hope everyone was able to enjoy Christmas wherever you were and whatever you were doing.

So the restoration of our ponds was kind of in hand until recently when the problems we thought we had turned out to be most likely something nobody probably really ever wants. And we think we could do with some advice.

We had dissolved oxygen level issues and purple sulphur bacterium and thought it was just a case of excess leaf matter build up creating anaerobic conditions.

But to our horror it looks like what we thought was a redundant cesspool 120metres away and about 25’ higher up, is still in use. Moreover it’s potentially serving x4 the number of dwellings it was designed to cater for originally about 150 years ago too

Knowing this is useful in so far as it explains why the fishery we bought has been gradually failing since the use of the cesspool increased (2007). But very worrying in so far as the owner of the cesspool is not exactly the exemplary neighbour type.

Once I figure out how to post images I can show you what the possible impacts look like. I’m pretty sure there is a correlation between the two places (our pond and the neighbouring cesspool). There’s a smell of sulphur very often. The pond goes pink, or grey blue, or green and there’s swirls or blooms of black water appearing. And this is restricted to just the one pond with the spring.

About 3 weeks ago I emptied two 132g tubs of fluorescein into the cesspool together with about 200 litres of water.

I’m hoping this will make its way down to our pond and give us the hard evidence we need to take to our neighbour and to a Court if need be. Then I came across a post on this forum about cloudy pools in a Finnish hillside pond and I was hooked!

I’m desperate to be my ponds boss but maybe there’s something else we can be doing? Or what if the dye doesn’t come through? Could it change colour maybe? etc etc...
My mind is racing trying to work out how to put this place back on the rails!!!

Sorry to load you up with my problems without anything to offer.

Our goal was to have angling, fish conservation (crucian carp) and aquaponics but that’s all in serious jeopardy.

Anything you good folk think I might need to know or do please feel free to share. We’re willing to consider anything. Right now we feel like we’re up a bit of a creek!

There’s very few if any fish. We were meant to have taken on x1000 crucians early next year but that’s on hold.

Thanks

I'm not one of the pros here but my first thought is maybe there is a way to make some sort of drain field or trench between them to devert the water from your pond. Do you see any water flow above ground or do you just think it is seeping?

Hi. Thank you Bobss. That idea has already been done. Which is a bummer but the 120m between the two points is a drainage field and our pond is the ditch effectively!

There’s got to be transfer into the aquifer from the cesspool I’m just not sure how to prove it short of making a bunch of bore holes in my neighbours field which might not be easy or cheap.

Regulators here wouldn’t allow a septic or cesspool to be built in soil like this (clay over limestone) hence our shock that this one is still in use. I’ll post some photos soon

Also we don’t see any effluent overflowing the tank or the inspection chamber which is just to one side. And some extra details: we heard from an ex chairman of the club that ran the site in the 70’s and 80’s. He said he remembered at least two pollution incidents. One affecting the spring lake and another that caused fish die off in all 3 ponds. This was before the number of dwellings was increased.

This last couple of weeks we’ve been running x2 3” pumps out of the spring lake into the highway drain via the two other ponds. This we hope will release some pressure preventing the aquifer from refilling with run off from the drainage field. The pumps have been off for the past few days (can’t expect our neighbours to put up with the noise at Xmas). As a result the spring pond has risen by about 8” at my best guess! The colour is milky grey with a possible yellow/green tint. Maybe the Fluorescein is coming through?

By the way our clay is brown/sand colour so I don’t think it could be the cause of the milky grey colour. Wish I could upload pics.

Here in the colonies the government would do a test and shut the whole works down due to effluent issues. I realize that this could create a problem and serious expense to those using the cesspool but this could also be/cause serious health issues to everyone in the area.

Essentially, your pond is/ could be a serious health issue.

Hi. Thanks for your reply

The situation is the same here. You wouldn’t be allowed to build a cesspool like this one but the fact that it existed before the rules changed puts it in a grey area (no pun intended). What’s more is that to get permission for the extra dwellings our neighbour said he was connected to the mains sewer and no one thought to check what he had put on his form.

Worse luck our neighbour is considered a pillar of the community but I digress. Environmental Health went round but were given some flannel (is that term in use over there still?) and all the other authorities are ducking the issue. Cut backs etc. But yes the ideal situation is the cesspool is abandoned and the neighbour gets connected to somewhere/something else.

I know of one neighbour with a pond and two youngsters next to us and at least two private wells and one public one all likely deriving something off this problematic aquifer. So it’s definitely a health hazard. 99.99% sure of that.

It’s just the final 0.01% of proof we need. Then we’ll see where things are going

If there is anyone on here who’s interest is hydrology or toxicology and who could explain what could be slowing or even preventing the dye trace coming through? Come Tuesday I’m going to call the manufacturer. If you need anymore info please ask.
Thank you all very much

KerkuNos, when you talk the the dye mfg, you might want to have some information handy. Even a guesstimate would be better than nothing. They might want to know how many gallons of "water" is reaching the cesspool daily. They will most likely want to know the soil type and the distance that the water has to travel through the ground before it reaches your pond. That information will most likely allow them to calculate how much dye should be used. Since the dye that you are using is organic, I don't know how many feet of soil would be needed to remove it from the water.

Here in our local sandy soils, most organics are filtered out after the water flows through 20 - 30 feet of sand. Here is some information on sand filters. I am not sure whether the soil you have there would act the same way. https://engineering.purdue.edu/~frankenb/NU-prowd/sand.htm

I will send you some information via private message, that is that small envelope to the upper left of the screen next to your name.

It took a while to get it written, but PM sent.

Thanks esshup

I’ve got an email ready to go to the manufacturer for Tuesday (tomorrow Monday is a bank holiday here). I’ll let you know what they say.

The strangest thing happened. A couple of days ago a black liquid began swirling out from the seam that I believe corresponds to the aquifer. It slowly spread out into the milky grey and spun its way toward where the pumps were chugging away. So I crept around that side of the pond to get a sample. I have to be really careful doing that because they cut that part of the quarry right up to the boundary and there’s a vertical drop to the water in parts. Anyway I got hold of a good couple of pints of brackish black ‘water’. Also I pulled out a bucket of the milky grey at the same time. For ease I put the screwcap plastic milk bottle in the bucket as I negotiated the route out. These were left outside for a couple of days with the black water not fully submerged but in the bucket of milky grey.

I would swear that water in the milk bottle was black but when I came to it today it was clear and when I shook it it was still clear!! All the black stuff seems to have disappeared. What’s that about? I mean is that normal in any kind of a situation or have we got magic water or something? There’s no way water from the bucket got in there.

I'm wondering if floating islands might help. They are often used to clean up excess nutrients, including waste water treatment. I have four at my place, and they seem to work well, though not inexpensive. Worth a look, at least.

https://www.floatingislandinternational.com/solutions/

Hi anthropic

Thank you! It’s a great idea. We have thought about it already. There’s a word for that type of gardening. I read about it a while back. Just can’t recall. Anyway yes definitely. Either that or reed beds. I fancy a bit of basketry after this TBH!