I don't know if anyone there does this, but a suction dredge and dewatering/filter bags will suck up the muck and put it into bags. The water will be clear when coming out of the bags and can return to the pond.
The bags are left to drain, broken open and the muck is spread out on the fields.
Here's a .pdf file with a lot of pictures and diagrams on how it works.
[Last year I've used my own excavator to dregde out some dirt at 8' from the shore (that's the max distance I can reach with this machinery). There were not so much muck and the clay mud was really compact and full of Phragmite's roots. My thought about not many muck is that in shallow water bacterial activity is stronger due to the presence of more DO and/or that light and sludgy muck constantly slides towards deeper areas. Can be correct?
Yes, I think that is correct.
When I worked my pond and I got into areas of hard clay (and even heavy sand), the bucket really has to be forced into the clay to remove it. Then the muck is just pushed out of the bucket as the clay goes in (you will see this effect when you pour it out onto the ground too. The solids immediately go to the bottom and the muck just oozes everywhere) Now you might say that this is OK because the muck will just settle back into that hole and you will get it the next bucket full. However, half the muck will disperse into the water column and go everywhere, the other half that is in the hole will become so "fluidized" that it will be just like bailing soup out.
That was my experience, mileage may vary. This is why most like to dry the pond out before doing any digging. I get why you don't want to, just realize that it may be a lot harder process. I think you may want to start in the deepest area where the muck is, then don't dig into the hard bottom, but get a feel for where that is. Then lightly scrape that area. only taking the muck. After you get all the muck, then start deepening. I think you will need to always go back to the deepest areas (as you dig the rest)and remove the muck as it will slide and settle into those deeper areas.
As I understand it scraping just the muck first would cause the muck might not be lost from bucket (or less at least). How did you proceed in this part of the job? Did you start from the center of the pond or near the shore? Did you fill the bucket and kick it up right away or did you scroll it on the pond bottom? Btw how long the suspended muck all over the water took to settle down again? Surely for me draining the pond is impossible and I will lose all fish. Dredging it full of water probably will turn it in a big bowl of muddy and mucky water that will harm fish but maybe won't kill them all.
I don't know if anyone there does this, but a suction dredge and dewatering/filter bags will suck up the muck and put it into bags. The water will be clear when coming out of the bags and can return to the pond.
The bags are left to drain, broken open and the muck is spread out on the fields.
Here's a .pdf file with a lot of pictures and diagrams on how it works.
Esshup this would be great! Simply the best way. But here is only a dream. Never heard about that around and I have not found anything like it either online in all the state. I start to think that the only possible way to clean and deepening this pond is to use an excavator with long reach arm and, as fish n chips said, starting first trying to remove as only muck as possible and then digging in the clay. It will be terrible to see and maybe it will harm the fish killing them but I hope many will survive, also helped by the continuous clean water flow through the inlet pipe all the time.
At the point the photo above was taken, was the water coming in from the ditch?
When I cleaned up my pond, I dried it up as much as possible so I wasn't working in water. The little bit I had to work in the water, it was like I described earlier. I did have to start at an edge. I dug a hole deeper than the surrounding area so the water would go into that area more. Then kept that pumped down to get the other areas dried out. Eventually, I moved this hole around to different spots as the dirt levels dropped, but always kept the grade so it sloped to the hole, no matter where it was.
To bad you can't put a dam across your pond. Pump it out and dig one half deeper. Then let the fish and water go into that hole while you dig the other half deeper. You probably could do this, if you were willing to put the work into a solid dam that wouldn't give out on you.
fish n chips, I did something like that when I renovated my pond. I drained a lot of water out, concentrating the fish into the deepest area. I then piled dirt and compacted it with the excavator.
I then dug the previous shallow area MUCH deeper and expanded it, then broke the dam to let all the water and fish go into the new deeper area. Then I removed the rest of the dam from the pond and continued to dig out the 2nd half.
I had to run a semi-trash pump every day for 10 hr before we could start digging, to remove the water that seeped in and to allow us to see what we were actually digging.
Yeah, if only ItalyBass had a deep hole in his to begin with. Then he could do like we did. He might have a hard time keeping all the fish alive without an aeration source. I don't know if he could dig a spot in the water, then start doing like we did. That initial deep pocket might make too much turbid water to keep the fish alive? I think it would be very difficult to build a solid enough dam across the pond with the water still in it. If it wasn't done right and it would blow out while you were in there digging.....ouch
Perhaps if he goes the way of that screen across the pond like someone mentioned. Then net the fish out of the side to dig deeper. Cull the bad fish, and put the good ones into the safe zone. Dig a big hole with a long reach excavator (8' deeper than current bottom). Wait a year to let things settle back, let fill again, removing barrier. Later, drain it down to dig the other half, pushing fish into that hole. Dig that hole/half as deep as wanted.
In my pond, when I did the renovation, the turbidity due to much/silt/whatever left the water with about 6" of visibility.
Even though I wasn't digging in that area of the pond, it stayed that way. He might be able to dig one end of the pond deep, drain the pond until the majority is out of the water, build a dam, and pump ground water from the construction side to the fish side to bring up the water level a bit. Then get to digging in earnest on the non-fish side.
Maybe he could find a de-watering bag somewhere on-line and get it shipped to him. Go get a gasoline semi trash pump and put it in the fish side. Use plastic to make a stream from the dewatering bag back to the fish side. Recirculate the water thru the bag to remove the suspended silt/muck from the fish side as he's digging the other side?
Hi guys, the water in pics above doesn t come from ditch. The pond is fed only by rains and springs till june. I think the only way I can walk (surely not the best one) is to get me an aerator, drain the pond enough to let fish survive with bubbles and maybe have a shallower area without water. Dig this area as much as possible and refill all with the ditch. Let all rebalancing for months or 1 year. Then repeat all the above with the other(s) part of the pond. I don't think I could build a dam with dirt cause it won't be never dry enough to be piled up and pressed in this situation. And surely I won't risk to be flooded ;-) .
F'n'C, Esshup do you have any pics of your works? What happened to your fish, did you have many kills due to the increased turbidity?
I did not worry about saving fish. There was nothing worthy of saving. Made that decision a lot easier for me. With saving your fish, would you consider creating a set-up (fish tank? kiddie pool?) that you could store the fish for a whole year if need be? Might be a second safety net in case the fish in the pond die while renovating. They wouldn't even need to be big fish, just something to guarantee that you will have some instead of finding them from a supplier. You would want to get that going and experiment/learn before you actually make the big commitment of digging.
Esshup says "Even though I wasn't digging in that area of the pond, it stayed that way. He might be able to dig one end of the pond deep, drain the pond until the majority is out of the water, build a dam, and pump ground water from the construction side to the fish side to bring up the water level a bit. Then get to digging in earnest on the non-fish side"
I don't think he would need to build a dam, if he could dig a trench down one side of where he is working from the ditch to the fish. Then valve the ditch pipe so when the water gets low, open up till its topped off and close up again. It would also eliminate pumping. The only need for pumping might happen if it filled back up from too much rain.
In picture #5 from the beginning of the thread, if you look to the center of the picture? I made my dam from the island to the shore closest to the camera. There was a natural underwater hump going from the island to the right that terminated at the bank of the pond, and that was the other "dam". This pond is a groundwater pond, there is not enough clay to seal the bottom of the pond - it's mostly sand. I used that material for the dam to hold the fish back. It worked, but it leaked, and water also poured into the pond from the water table in the surrounding ground.
That's why I had to pump water out from the area that we were digging in on a daily basis.
Having not the fish problem would be great, but I ve spent time and a lot of money to stock this pond in the last 10 years, buying or fishing and transporting few fish at a time from miles far. Probably I could put some BG and few LMB in my garden pond (about 5000 gal) and they could stay in there till LMB won't bite the last BG, but I can't see this idea as a viable alternative. Sounds good to me the trench idea. I m pretty sure all the bottom has about the same average depth, so pumping out the water probably will only expose a wet stripe all around the bank. Unfortunately the dam option isn't feasible here. I ve read your thread Esshup and seen all the pics (great work you made!), but my pond is so different from yours. Gives me a lot of hope that you lost so few fish. But exactly how long and during which seasons the fish were confined? Don't you have a pic of the dam built from the island to the shore?
Yesterday I made some underwater videos just for fun. I've noticed that LMB are concentrating in the south facing bank (probably because of the warmer water) and that this bank is full of trillions of little invertebrates, I think Daphnia, everywhere. Is it possible that LMB are already spawning? I'm worried because I didn't see any other fish, like BG and mosquitofish, except of the little unknown fry you can see in the last video. I hope they are still hidden in depths. Water temperature was about 60 °F, but it has been warmer last 3 weeks.
Is there any super-pro hawk-eye around here who could be able to tell me which fish are these fry of? Fish stocked are: LMB, BG, CGC, crucians (carassi) and mosquitofish. https://youtu.be/yDKBOTEE5YE
