Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? 2.5 Acre Pond Gone! work/restroation thread

As expected the pH test for the pond came back fairly hot 5.1 pH. After doing some research I should have taken soil samples Prior to it filling and amended it with AgLime at that point. - Makes perfect sense and I had thought about it but didn't get the knowledge until now of how and the studied findings on different lime formulations.

Anyway - 4 actual tons, at the neutralizing rate of 2T per surface acre after the "loss"

Only about 3"-4" to go...

⬇ Click this pic to have the gif run - not sure why it doesn't automatically?

Should hit the overflow with the next appreciable rain. Then I'm in the restore and restock phase not 'did it work?' phase.

Checking the pH and alkalinity in a few weeks to see about forage stocking.

Watching the turbidity since I limed it via pics and it appears the mico critters are blooming nicely.

Got to the overflow and had Mose into get some light work now that the pond level was known...



This is what it looked like prior to him coming in and getting into a bit of a pickle...



he kept trying to get that behemoth out and only got it deeper and deeper...



I finally got him to call it a recovery and he got another track in with a winch on it and got it out.



At the end of the day he left some deep gouges after a 3-4 hour delay from getting the dozer about swamped.



He came back in and backed out all the ruts and finished up real nice.



The pH had come up to 6.3 or so but that was prior to the new work so I'll have to add about 1000#or so to the new areas but once that's done I'm 97.5% sure that the excavator work on the pond is complete and all I have to do is dial in the chemistry and stock.

Right now it's a a little lime to hit the 7.0 pH and gypsum to raise the alkalinity to the right level.

That would have been a very expensive piece of structure in your pond. Glad he was able to get it out of there.

I'll bet he was sweating and not because of the temp and humidity! Whew!!!!!

Pucker time!

Here's the tale in 2 mins....

The link is not showing but it is in the post ?

ewest - it takes a bit to load up the gif... DO you see in the post above yours?

There a been a good couple 'validation' points along Crescent Pond renovation and this one is specific to the evaporation / seepage.

Aug '21 - late May '22 - the pond filled up to the overflow, 11' deep, 65' wide, 1100' long = 5,875,155.00 us gallons.

Since the material I used to make the "dam" aka causeway at the property line is porous I have to figure the other surface area into as well, which comes to 2.5 SA.

We've had a drought in this part of Ohio for about 3 weeks now and I have a rain gauge at the farm so I have the data to correlate.



In June, .24"+.56"+.64"+.08"+.04" = 1.56" total rainfall for the month. The watershed I calculated is 1" of rain in the ponds watershed would produce in 531,000 sqft x .62 = 329,220 gallons or in June we should have added 513,583 gallons.

NCRS and others have "average" evaporation rates by month - so for June - that's 4.5" of loss per PAN for the month of June.



So, if I do Simple (KISS) 1.56" of rainfall (-) 4.5" of avg PAN evaporation loss 'should' indicate a drop in the overall pond average level by -2.94" (roughly)

Last day of June capture.


this last pic is zoom on pond level indicator. There is a mark right at the current water level which is ~ 3" low, or below the overflow. The validation is that the pond's renovations and patch (Aug '21) are all holding really well based on the correlation of the Avg PAN loss and the current pond level.



Lots of SMILES over here!!!

That is great news! for the amount of work and money you have committed to the project.
You cant get much better news then that, other then finding out your fish grew much faster then you expected!

Good news and Bad news on the Crescent Pond project.

[video:youtube][/video]

-June'22, Tested pH and it came to 7.0 pH
-July'22, Tested pH it came in at 7.0 pH
-July '22, Stocked 15# of Fathead minnows(FHM) and 40 Redear Sunfish(RES)
-Aug'22, Tested Alkalinity - Hellaoff at 23ppm... < 20ppm fish can't live.

With the pH dialed in I needed to get Alkalinity ppm up above 50, really above 100 ppm if possible. I looked around and found powered gypsum was the just the ticket I needed. Did the math on surface arce foot etc ordered enough to bring, in a lab environment, the Alkalinity up to 150ppm, the lower limit the pros here told was 80. IF I get it to 100 ppm I'll be real happy.

-Aug'22, amended with 2200# of powered gypsum to meet the 150ppm of Alkalinity. Did this off the venerable old rowboat with a modified sluice and 4.0GPM pump.

pH and Alkalinity 'should be good' for bit but now the seep.

With the drought this fall I was really hopeful the water drop was the result of that and not a seep. That's not the case as Oct-Jan rolled in with ample moisture and almost no evaporation (PAN) the level is holding solid about 2' below the overflow.

That's the good and bad news, if I don't do another thing the pond will thrive. .... but I'm me and as I push the glasses up the bridge of my nose and adjust my britches I know I 'might' be able to plug the seep, it raised up the overflow once so somewhere there's a seep (maybe more) but since it reached the overflow it's put a couple hundred thousand gallons thru the seep - it shouldn't be too hard to find.

Current plan is to test pH and Alkalinity in March'23 - if those are holding steady I'll stock FHM, RES, Golden GSH, SMB and YP - to be in the right ratio and plentiful. Also plan to add 300-400 crayfish.

Also in March'23 I'll do a real solid visual inspection of the entire pond perimeter to locate the active seep(s). My bentonite supplier has both the granular and chips and the current advice from the pros is 70/30 Chips/Granular, 6" thick and 8' in diameter from the seep.

-Apr'23 20 bags of chips and 6 bags of granular per located seep
-Apr'23 replace 12-15 cypress tress that didn't catch from last Apr

As always looking for advice/feedback --

If the bentonite doesn't work, talk to TJ here on the forum for his polymer product. I'm looking forward to seeing how the bentonite does and how long it lasts if it does work.

Is the experience with Bentonite that it degrades? or just doesn't work? I do NOT like redoing things - first things first thou... I need to find the seep which I'm pretty sure I'll be able to do.

I put TJ in the PMail thing but no user showed up - could you sen him this thread link - like to chat with him - much appreciated.

Sorry, TJ is a moderator here. teehjaeh57

Dave Davidson has had first hand experience with Bentonite not working long term. Dave Davidson1

It’s possible that I didn’t mix it well enough. Either time. Not real impressed with it but don’t know what else might work.

People I know have never had luck with bentonite completely sealing a leak.

Thx for opinions and observations guys. I'm working through the COA's, getting Boot on Ground in March to observe the leak/seep will tell the tale I think. She's holding steady at 2.3' below the overflow and 8.7' deep.

Happy to help if I haven’t already. Ping me anytime.

Tj@hudlandmgmt.com