Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Soil questions Water table pond

As some of you know, I am digging a water table pond. Any suggestions on predigging planning and general pond design. I know that if I want to know for sure the water fluctuations of the ground water I have to leave my test holes open and observe. I really need the fill for another part of my property so it would be tough to wait that long. I appreciate any advice.

Sort of cliff notes here (from first hand, personal experience). If you search for groundwater pond you might find pictures of mine.....

1) Slope pond banks no steeper than 3:1 - 4 or even 6:1 would be better because if the water table drops you will be mowing the dirt that would be normally under water.

The caveat of that is if the water stays high for a long period, those areas will be great for growing underwater or emergent plants, which might make fishing difficult. They can be controlled tho - chemicals or grass carp. I'd also say Tilapia, but you are in Illinois and they don't allow them.

2) When digging the pond, make sure you have a 3" semi-trash pump available, with intake and discharge hose long enough to get the water away from the pond where you are digging. Digging in water = more time and $$ spent, plus more wear and tear on the equipment.

3) Think about putting a floating pier on the pond. That will make utilizing the pond easier due to the fluctuating water levels.

4) Cover for the fish: Think about floating islands. Any cover you place in less than 4', maybe 6' of water might be out of the water at least some time of the year and aesthetics might not be as desired.

5) If you run into clay, stockpile it and use it to line the pond when done. (Doing all the proper compaction methods when it's placed back in the pond, blah, blah, blah.) If you find enough, you might not have to deal with a groundwater pond!!

6) Have enough erosion mats, Rye or Bermuda grass seed and a plan for watering the grass seed in place before the pond is completely dug. Getting the dirt out of the hole and watching a large rain event coming is no time to be scrambling to find erosion mats and grass seed.......

In Illinois, I'd like to see winter water pond depth of 10'-12' over at least 40+% of the pond basin. So, if the water might drop 5' in the summer/fall, that means digging down to 17' deep. FWIW, I dug mine to 22' deep and had 3' of sediment wash back in during a VERY hard rain before I could get erosion mats in place.

I do not have the experience of Esshup. I am in my second year with my water table pond but........+100000000000 to what he said. In a month or so I am spending more money to have a guy come in to make my pond deeper, clean out all the stuff that has washed in and get major erosion control in place everywhere I have witness marks that it is an issue around the pond perimeter. Don't make the mistakes I made!

Thanks for the help. Perhaps a dumb question, but Is there a practical difference between a spring fed pond and a water table pond?

20 years ago when I first stocked my pond I bought my fish from a place near Semore,Indiana. They had a water table pond that they used to supply water to several other ponds they had for raising fish. As I remember the sides of the pond seemed steep and the water was quite a way down from the top of the pond.

A water table pond is dug in a material that saturated with water.
and will not hold water when the water table lowers. Most of the time the water does not come all the way to the surface but not always. Sandy, pours material, flat ground.

Spring may be on the side of a hill and will come to the surface. The water moves underground and then may runs on the surface, The amount of water will very just like the water table depending on the conditions,

It makes sense. When you have a spring fed pond generally you have the spring running in and an outlet with the water flowing out. As a result, you can have cooler water temperatures. I wonder if you have similar flows through a water table pond. Does the water constantly interchange through the water table and your pond similar to the flow of a natural spring? If so, is there a way to measure the interchange? On the one hand it seems to me there would be very little flow in a water table pond because the pond is the area of least resistance. The pond I am digging however is about 30 feet higher and 300 feet away from a creek bottom. It seems like gravity would pull water out of the pond fairly quickly causing an interchange in water. Of course, Iam new and my observations could be all wrong.

FWIW I think water table ponds exchange water. Water will flow in or out of the pond whenever there is a pressure difference between the pond and the water table. Water table drops in your area, water flows out of the pond. Water table rises, water flows into the pond until the pressures are equal. If you have a pressure gradient in the water table between you and the creek, you may have continuous flow thru the pond.

I have a creek that runs thru my property. They dug test holes for gravel at various spots across the whole property. They dug right next to the creek (100') down 30'. No water at all went into the hole. Dug out a 1000' from the creek and down 30'. At the bottom, a raging river flushing into the hole and out the other side. Good gravel prospects, because water find the path of least resistance and will travel thru gravel before soil.

My point is, a creek, river, etc, may be contained where its at because of topography, but also because of soils too. The water in the creek may not find a way to a lower spot because of a clay liner, so on it goes. The stuff underground is doing the same thing, just we can't see it. Similar to a car and an interstate system, where you have bridges going over other roads, but you just cant get to them right away.

Pond being higher than your creek might just mean that there is a clay liner between the two, and what is keeping all that other water up there too. Break that liner, and ugh ohhh, there goes your pond!!!! Sure it could be draining some in there already thru small veins, but the inflow of water into that spot is greater than what may be leaving. So yes, you might have a great flow thru, or not.

The definition of a spring and ground water is just a quick start. The differences and similarities could be posted about for a while.

Our pond was dug down into the water table.

I consider the water table to be the level of water that you must drill into to reliably pump water with a well pump over the long term (such as for home water usage or irrigation). The water table itself fluctuates very slowly over long time periods mostly based on long term precipitation.

Dwight- Do you find that there is a lot of "flow thru" with the water? I suppose you would know this by it taking more chemicals, or whatever, to treat the water than it normally should?

I don't put any chemicals in the water.

I do know that the water moves by the fact that in the winter there is a narrow area of open water on the north and west sides of the pond even when the ice is 2 feet thick everywhere else. The open area is very narrow (0-2 inches) It is caused by the warmer ground water melting the ice edge. The water is flowing to the ESE.

I also believe that the clear water moving through the pond has an effect on water clarity (making it more clear).