I had a pond built a year and a half ago. I can't get it to hold water. The builder said he did not hit sand. I was on sight when it was built and never seen him hit sand. I do have some wet spots on the levee but don't see any running water. I have been trying to fill the pond with a 2 inch well. It will fill and then it starts loosing about a inch of water per day. The pond has been pumped out and bottom reworked. I can't see any visual leaks. I have put 2 pallets of bintonite in it with no change. It was limed when it was built. I did have some places in the levee that sank after it was first built, but that has been repaired. The pond was built with clay. Can someone please give me a idea where to go from here?
No core trench. When he xug the test holes he said one was not need. He said that the hole levee was built from lay. I have had the pond empty three times. He worked.on the levees and worked on the bottom of the pond. Still no change. The pond is 3 acres. He said keep pumping water in it and it will seal. I pumped.water.in it for 30 days to fill it. Now it like I'm pumping it.in as fast as.it runs out. My pump puts out about 125000 gallons a day. The pond only comes up about 1/2 a inch a day, now that it stated back leaking.
No core trench. When he xug the test holes he said one was not need. He said that the hole levee was built from lay. I have had the pond empty three times. He worked.on the levees and worked on the bottom of the pond. Still no change. The pond is 3 acres. He said keep pumping water in it and it will seal. I pumped.water.in it for 30 days to fill it. Now it like I'm pumping it.in as fast as.it runs out. My pump puts out about 125000 gallons a day. The pond only comes up about 1/2 a inch a day, now that it stated back leaking.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you can pump all the water you want and it won't seal itself. Tell the contractor that you will pump all the water he wants you to pump providing that he pays for the electricity and a new pump when it wears out. See what he says.
At this point the contractor has blown me off. I’m not getting anything else from him. He said the levees aren’t leaking so it’s not his problem. He said some ponds just don’t hold water. But the levees are seeping water and I payed to have a pond built. Not going to rant about him. So what should I do from here? How can I fix the pond? I don’t want to give up, but I have no idea what to do or try next. I’m not a pond builder. That’s why I payed someone to do it. If I were a pond builder how would I fix it? I have a lot of money and a lot of time invested. I don’t want to give up. At this point I will have to pay someone to push in the levees.
The fact that it drains almost completely does suggest a "bottom leak" rather than a levee leak.
However, it is possible to have a bottom leak without ever excavating to sand. You may have gotten very unlucky and you have a sand layer or stringer just a few inches below the clay at some spot in the bottom of your pond.
The bottom of the pond should have been excavated 1-2' DEEPER than the design depth to discover all of the sand deposits, old tree roots, and large rocks. It is then back-filled with good clay, moistened, and compacted in 6" lifts. The bottom clay blanket should be at least 1' thick on a pond with a water depth of less than 10'. (Even thicker is better if you have enough clay material.)
If the pond is deeper than 10' at full pool, then it probably should have a bottom clay blanket of at least 2' thickness.
How deep is your pond by design? Do you have "extra" clay in the levees that comes from the spoils that were excavated from the pond site? If so, then one option is to dig up the bottom of the pond to find your leak (probably in sand), and then re-seal with good clay and proper compaction equipment.
Unfortunately, that option is going to be expensive. As mentioned above by Bob, TJ does have a remedial process that frequently works for leaks like yours. Hopefully, TJ will drop into your thread when he gets caught up on his fall projects. (If you don't see him reply in a few days, then you might want to send him a private message to look at your post.)
Good luck on turning your "leaky hole" into a pond!
Thank you all for the help. The pond original had a 13 foot deep hole at one end and the middle was 3.5 foot deep. The second controller came out and cut the high spot out and filled the hole in. It is now 9 foot deep in the hole and about 5 foot deep everywhere else. There was no visible signs of the leak. We put down bintonite and he put clay over it. He put it I. In 1 foot lifts and packed it. We added bintonite before every lift. I never have found any visual signs of a leak. One of the levees does have a few wet spots, but no water running. If my math is right, I am loosing about 100000 gallons a day. I think that is a lot of water and I should see it running out. I do have a ditch that runs along the backof one of the levees and it has trees along the ditch bank.i did look up soil flock. If my math is right I would need about 20 thousand dollars worth to seal the leak. I have about 40 already invested. I have very little money left to spend on this project. If soil flock is what has to be done, I will have to abandon this project till I can get more money.
Did you renovate/enlarge an existing pond, or have you already had two contractors work on a new pond build? If there was a pre-existing pond, did it hold water?
Unless the high spot was for fish structure, then they may have left it because they were encountering some sand in the bottom at that location?
Pushing out the high spot may have caused the leak since they probably packed clay in the deep spot when they filled it. However, if the slopes of the high spot were not blanketed and packed, then that could be the source of the "bottom" leak if the water entry point is low enough.
I have read several threads on Pond Boss where large amounts of water were leaking from a pond, but some damp ground was the only evidence (other than the water loss).
It is amazing how much water trees and grass can take up from the ground. We have a creek on our property that is tied to the level of the groundwater. It would actually rise in the fall. For the first few years, I would go out to work and note the higher water level, and assume I had missed seeing some rains. It turns out, that the groundwater level would rise substantially after the first hard frost made the trees and prairie grass go dormant.
It sound like your pond project may be on hold for a while due to budget constraints. If possible, I would recommend re-filling the pond again in November? Maybe you can walk your ditch after letting the pond leak for several days and see if you can spot the water to gather a little more info.
The pond is all new construction. I have has 2 separate containers work on the pond. The high spot was left there for fish structure. Both contractors told me they didn't see any sand anywhere. Both said I had great clay for pond construction. The pond does not get filled from run off. It has to be filled with a pump. The levees completely surround the pond. I got in the ditch today and walked it. There is some water in the ditch. I didn't see anywhere that water running. I think the water in the ditch was from the rain we got 2 days ago.
You indicate that the pond is 3 acres and that you can pump 125,000 gal/day. An acre-foot is 325,851 gal, so 3 acre-feet is 977,553 gal, and 3-acre inches is 81,463 gal., so you should be able to add over 1.5" per day if adding 125,000 gal. If you are only able to add 0.5" per day with 125,000 gal, then a lot seems to be leaking out, even considering the need to saturate the soil and evaporation. Are others getting the same numbers? Does this look like a big leak to others? However, you indicated that you filled the pond in 30 days (at 125,000 gal per day), which is a total number of gallons of 3,750,000, which would add about 3.8 feet to a 3 acre pond with no leaks or the slope of the pond basin must be very shallow. I must be doing some of the calculations wrong or am making a flawed assumption? I am thinking that it is the slope of the basin that accounts for the majority of my numbers not being a good estimate? In the end, if its leaking, then somewhere in the basin, the clay liner must be broken. BTW, my 4th pond has a leak, but I know that I had sand veins which I apparently did not seal up well enough, so I can sympathize with your situation and wish you well. In my case, I'll wait a couple years before investing in polymer because there are no guarantees.
Step one is to correctly identify the problem. That is often very difficult to achieve.
The correct subsequent steps depend on getting Step 1. right.
Sometimes it is not even possible to identify the problem and you just have to treat the "symptoms".
If you can't exactly pinpoint your leak, another option is to "scarify" (disc or till) the bottom as deeply as possible to break up the existing flow paths. Then wet the churned subsoil and compact as heavily as possible with a towed sheepsfoot roller or with a self-propelled vibratory soil compactor. (The rental for a Caterpillar CP563 is only $1,000/day in my area, but it will cost you more than that with trucking.)
You might be able to compact the bottom of a 3-acre pond in two days(?) if you had a helper that was wetting areas in front of you. That MIGHT seal your leak. If it didn't, then I think any partially sealing that resulted would only help a soilfloc treatment work better. (I would definitely talk to TJ before investing any more time/money.)
There are some dirt contractors on the forum that could give you more accurate information on the method I described above.
RAH I don't think you're numbers are wrong. The reason for the pond filling so fast the lT time, was we got a total of 9 inches of rain over 3 days. We also got 4 more inches the next week. I have frinds that have ponds around me. They say in the heat of somer they have to run there pumps around 24 to 50 hours a week to keep there pond full. One has a 1/2 scre pond, one has a 2.5 acre pond and the third never runs his pump. He is lucky. His pond is spring feed.
A couple thoughts, Im no professional but that amount of water leaving an area is a big flow, I built a pond a yr or so ago and had a sink hole under it, the pond would fill up and then go back down swiftly to that one level, we wound up finding the sinkhole and were able to repair it and the pond is now full, my point is, it sounds to me like you have water going out thru the bottom to possibly a sand or gravel layer and it may be running a long ways under ground before it surfaces, if it ever does. I dont think that it is going out thru your dam, with that volume of water you would be able to find your leak in a dam in like 10 minutes, 1 big question is how low does the water go to before stabilizes? at that elevation you will find source of your leak, theoretically, a leak of that size, running for any length of time should leave one heck of a hole. usually a big leak such as you are dealing with is much easier to find then a small nuisance leak. correcting it tho may be a different story. Good Luck!
All the really good ideas I've ever had came to me while I was milking a cow.
My leak situation may be less common, but the sand layer that I hit is in the bottom of the pond, but the pond level stabilizes just 4' below full pool. I think the sand vein/tube must rise up in elevation somewhere down-slope from the pond (like a drain tube with a high spot). If it does not seal itself within the next 3 years, I may be contacting TJ for help.
RAH's situation is a good example of the natural variability of the sediment deposition that creates the sub-soils for our ponds. Every leak is going to be somewhat unique.
However, in that type of scenario, if you knew exactly where the water was exiting the pond, you could excavate a single narrow trench with just a backhoe or small excavator outside of the pond boundaries. If you successfully exposed the edges of the sand body, you could excavate an extra foot, and then backfill your trench with lifts of compacted clay. You would create the equivalent of a "core trench" just to block the pathway that is causing the leak.
In the real world, it is difficult to determine "exactly" where the leak is going, but it is possible.
In my case, I attempted to seal an entire core trench, but the "quicksand" and cave-ins made it hard to get a pure clay barrier in place. I knew at the time what the risks were. My objective was primarily to create good wildlife habitat, and I seem to have achieved that. A well sealed pond would have been even better.
Was the pond still full when you were trying to perform that work, or would you had to have dealt with quicksand regardless, due to "outside" groundwater also saturating your sand?
I am hoping the OP can re-fill his pond this fall and pinpoint the location of the leak. Hopefully, that would make it fixable within his budget, unless your experience indicates that even the "small" fix might require big work to accomplish.
Pond had never been full at that time but was under construction. Pond had a bottom drain, but "quicksand" was below that level. Water seemed to come from a subsurface source, but not the aquifer (rather "springs"). I suspect an ancient creek bed or multiple beds that filled over time from surface water. I was working with a small dozer and a backhoe.
I have wet sand of variable thickness on top of wet clay. Our near surface aquifer is as dry as it has been in the last 10 years. I should be out starting my pond projects, but I can't get off from my work and family obligations!
Jumping in here just a year late, but I wanted to share this if it helps others looking for the source of their leak, and at their wits end like we have been. I empathize with you. We were successful in finding our leak source after a lot of trial and error and almost a year of frustration. Many thanks to TJ for his expertise and advice in our process. We found a large hole in the very bottom of the pond. You can see for yourself what it looks like in the video. We are considering our options on the best way to try and fill this hole 18’ under water. The pond is currently about 4’ low. Open to suggestions if anyone has experience with this. We are waging war on this leak and considering all options short of draining the pond at this point.
WE FOUND THE POND LEAK! - How to Find a Water Leak in a Large Earthen Pond Using Tracer Dye
So cool to find the obvious leak! I would be tempted to use a PVC pipe to direct appropriate cement mixture directly into the hole. Follow TJs advice though.
If cement, use the material that contains glass fibers. Mixed just a little thin so it flows into the initial water path, and not using coarse aggregate. At least at first if it just keeps getting sucked in, then I’m not sure. I am not a mason, so I don’t know all of the products available. If these is such a thing as cement that swells when it cures, that would likely help, combined with fibers.
I suppose bentonite may work directed into the hole, but I have heard very few success stories.
I suppose bentonite may work directed into the hole, but I have heard very few success stories.
Bentonite is a rock type composed of a group of swelling clays, and a widely available industrial product of the same name. As a dry clay powder, it will swell substantially when saturated with water. I think it can only work where it can be emplaced in a less than fully-hydrated state and then allowed to expand further as it takes up its maximum water content.
I do NOT believe it would work on any macro leaks. If you cemented off the big hole, and then used some bentonite to fill the gaps in the tiny spaces where the concrete did not bond to the pond bottom substrate or where the cement contracted and left tiny gaps, then it might work in that scenario.
One time when searching I seen a product that was small pieces of limestone coated with bentonite. They claimed the limestone helped it sink fast and pack to seal leaks. Maybe using a pvc pipe to put layers of something like this and soilfloc would work. What was TJs advice?
Thanks for the suggestions guys. We were curious to know if polymer alone would slow it. We’ve kind of been using this opportunity to test the effectiveness of the polymer on a hole this size. It has to choke down to narrower spots with twists and turns. TJ suggested getting some larger aggregate in the hole. Gravel, kittly litter and some polymer to have something for it to bind to. So far I have tried dumping gravel, paver base, kitty litter, clay, sand and seekleak polymer. We had a small weather window last week before rain and cold, so I dumped about 8 buckets of that combination of material. I have not done the pvc pipe to directly shoot the material down the hole. So I know not all of that material hit the mark dumping it from the waters surface. That was 4 days ago….and I’ve been out of town to take additional measurements to know the effectiveness yet. I’m eager to check it out. I’ll have a better report after the polymer has had more time to expand. But we’re working on the logistics of positioning a 20’ pvc pipe over the hole and stabilizing it to shoot more material in the hole. Before we do that, I’ll get my camera back down there to see what it looks like. I will look into the cement options, and be sure to report back.
I've seen where the fibers come separate, and you mix them into the concrete yourself. I would be curious to know how you would direct the pipe down there. Maybe an anchor or two with a rope, and an eye loop on the pipe to guide it? If the pipe is lighter than water, it will be hard to keep it where it needs to be with a 20ft length. It seems easy until you start thinking about the difficulties of aligning the pipe to the hole and keeping it there while you are working. Maybe craft something that has a rod/steak on the end that you pound into the bottom to have it stay put while you work, with a 45 degree fitting to angle material where you need it. Another option would be a bucket with a trap-door bottom that you can open with a second rope to dump the contents once it is guided over the hole. It would need to be a lot heavier than water to work.
Well, here’s what I ended up doing…I could try and write it out, but this video shows it better. Check out the underwater footage. And now being 9 days post application, our leak has been reduced to ~.25” daily. Huge improvement over 4” loss daily earlier in July. We’ve hit this one spot with multiple applications of clay, polymer and granular bentonite hoping to narrow that channel. This last application scraping the partially set up polymer jelly into the hole has reduced the leak significantly. Here’s to hoping it maintains this way.
Been following this. I have a leak in the dam about 5 ft below the top. More like a seep. But, this time, due to our not unusual drought, the leaky area should be exposed. This thread makes me want to look at it and try a fix.
NNAFish, how did you mix the compound. In other words, recipe please.
It's not about the fish. It's about the pond. Take care of the pond and the fish will be fine. PB subscriber since before it was in color.
Without a sense of urgency, Nothing ever gets done.
Boy, if I say "sic em", you'd better look for something to bite. Sam Shelley Rancher and Farmer Muleshoe Texas 1892-1985 RIP
NNAFish, another question. I was listening to your video on shallow water spawning habitat and you said you placed your best spawning gravel bed on the north/northeast side of the pond as you said this was the side of the pond that would warm up the fastest in the spring.
I am confused as my pond is also considered a 'northern' pond and I assume our longitude is about the same depending how far north or south you are in Iowa. In my pond the perch eggs go in the South or Southeast corner of the pond first every year and I would assume that would mean the south or SE warms up most quickly.
Bobbss, the camera is an aqua vu HD7i. I couldn’t have done this without a camera. It’s been fascinating. And the walleye and perch and smallies that we’re growing in the pond are all over the bottom of the pond….which is also fun to see them grow.
Dave, I think the recipe thus far has been the seekleak polymer continuing to build and compound within the leak with each application. The combination of the various other materials (clay, sand, gravel, kitty litter, bentonite) were primarily to get anything to lodge in the hole to slow the water long enough to have polymer bond to long enough to set up and begin expanding.
The polymer continues to expand for 3 weeks after application.
In your case with a seep/leak in the dam that’s exposed, I don’t think the polymer would work as well until the water level comes up. The polymer is best when there is water running through a leak so that the fine polymer particles get sucked into the leak in the dam where the water is escaping so it starts to expand and plug the leak internally in the dam.
We treated the entire pond basin in August with 4 units of Seekleak polymer. Our leak went from 4” daily to 2.25” after that application. About a month later is when I found the sink hole leak. We then focused only on that spot for the past two months. We’ve applied polymer and the clay/kitty litter combo in just that area like you saw in the video. I wait a couple weeks in between applications to allow the polymer to expand. Test the water flow with the camera and dye tablets to see if I can see where it’s going. Then I put more polymer down over top. I think it’s working like plaque building up in an artery and clogging the channel shut by compounding on top of the previous layer of polymer/clay layer.
I’ve been monitoring daily water levels, and over the past three months of treating we’ve gone from 4” to 2.25” to 1.25” to .75” to .25” daily loss currently. That trend has been super exciting. I don’t want to speak too soon, but we’ve seen incredible results. It’s been time consuming and a lot of effort. But we’re kind of an extreme case I think with the leak 20’+ feet down in the pond. Accessing it is a challenge. So if it could work on a leak like ours, I’m fairly confident it could help you.
For a polymer application, a seep type leak is perfect for what that product could do…but you’d want to wait until the water is up and there is water actively running through the dam to pull it into the dam so it could expand within the leak and stop the flow.
Hey canyoncreek….when building our pea gravel beds, I was making the assumption that pond temps would follow the similar pattern as larger lakes. I do believe that water temps generally do warm faster on the north side of large water bodies, but I’m not sure whether the volume of water in a 1 acre pond is enough to make as big of a difference. I’m only one season in on our pond to have actual data. Most of my strategy when placing structure was on my assumptions from other experience.
What I actually witnessed in our first spring in the pond was that the perch spawned on the west side of the pond on the dam where we had sunken brush. They used the wood structure to hang ribbons on in about 5 ft of water. It’s my guess that the perch are prioritizing the best structure for them and then waiting for the water temp to be ideal in that spot. I didn’t expect the perch to use the gravel beds for spawning. The bluegill however did use the gravel beds on both the north and south.
My only explanation is that I bet each pond environment is a little different. What do the perch use to hang ribbons on in your pond in the south end?
It may be different for different species. For me it has always been kind of counter-culture with my perch. They seem to go to the S or SE corner of the pond, but the west side of my pond is shaded by dense trees so sun has a harder time hitting the SW side later in the day in the winter and early spring.
The YP also don't seem to prefer using sticks or branches. There are SOME ribbons on branches but it seems just as likely that they drape it around a rock, or drape it through the uprights of some dead sedges/reeds. They also have preferred to use the cavity and the opening of a dome style minnow trap to catch the ribbon and help extract it. Simply by counting the locations the average is that they will lay them on a bed of oak leaves with no structure at all more than any other option.
The other odd thing is that traditional wisdom is that they will use branches in about 2 feet of water and you said you see yours in about 5 ft of water. My egg strands are always in 1 foot of water and sometimes even close enough to shore to be in 8" of water. I do see a random strand in 2 feet of water but that is the exception. I wouldn't know about strands in 5 ft of water as my clarity in the spring is about 24-30" only.
I have (hopefully) no bluegill and a few pumpkinseeds but have not seen a panfish nest in the past 3 summers.
It would be tremendous if you could produce conditions for walleye spawning in your pond. I imagine you have a plan for adding water if needed to keep the spawning flats at the correct temp and depth during the spring spawn? And I guess you need to create some current of water too?
Thanks for sharing your perch structure findings. That’s interesting the diversity in which they’re laying their ribbons.
I captured a video of the ribbons in the brush. The depth of water was about 5-6’….but the ribbons themselves were only 2’ under the water surface hanging on the brush/twigs. I won’t keep linking videos, but you can find that video if you are curious.
As for the walleye spawning conditions. Yes and yes. We have a plan…we supplement with well water as needed. We’ve needed a lot recently with the leak. But with that trending positive recently, we’re currently about 18” low and rising. Walleye need current and moving water….so we’ve had a massive waterfall built by aquascapes to create that consistent moving water environment that we can control in the spring. Because of our leak and water level, we haven’t been able to turn it on yet, but we’re hopeful that in the next two weeks we’ll be able to fire it up!
I will manipulate rocks and boulders in the shallow flat where the waterfall will pour into the pond to get the right water flow. It’s a work in progress, but that’s our plan, and it’s starting to take shape. You can see the current state of the waterfall on the channel. I’ll update more at each phase of the project.
Dave, I think the recipe thus far has been the seekleak polymer continuing to build and compound within the leak with each application. The combination of the various other materials (clay, sand, gravel, kitty litter, bentonite) were primarily to get anything to lodge in the hole to slow the water long enough to have polymer bond to long enough to set up and begin expanding.
Did you ever pump down any nylon netting? (There are hundreds of different sizes and strengths of grid type products for other uses.)
I would think some netting lying flat against the flow, OR balled up in a restriction, might provide some substrate for your other materials to get bound up into the leak.
I never did…the timing and logistics didn’t line up, and I wanted to get the polymer working. I was going to try cheese cloth, but didn’t end up putting it in the hole prior to the substrate and polymer. If the hole opens up again, I’ll certainly do that.
Maybe I could even still get some mesh fabric down over the area to sandwich in between additional polymer clay layers for added stability.
Thanks NNAFISH! I never thought of using a camera to help look for leaks. While I don't lose near as much water per day as you were when you started, and probably don't have a hole that big to spot, I wonder if a camera could help me find where my water is going. It would be nice to know what area to treat.
Can you tell me what dye you're using?
Is your pond very clear? It looks like it is. I would hate to spend that kind of money on a camera, and my pond not be clear enough to see anything.
You’re right, if the leak is a lot of little seeps, it may be hard to tell. But, if you can even eliminate one half of the pond by following the dye to a general area, it greatly reduces the cost of polymer treatment. Depending on how deep your pond is. Even applying due to the surface on a windless day, you might be able to track it. If your pond is less than 10’ deep, I would try the surface application of the dye first. It’s cheap, and it might be all you need to identify the general area the water is moving toward.
Our pond is clear, which is certainly an advantage. I can see at least 4-5’ down. Maybe more. I haven’t done a secchi disk.
There are cheaper camera options for sure. But I totally understand.
I did NOT like the action of the dye in your last video. It appeared to have very strong positive buoyancy. How is that going to help find a leak on the bottom?
Did your dye come as a liquid, or was it a powder that you mixed into water?
I wonder if future users could use temperature to control the buoyancy of the dye? For example, refrigerate the balloons for negative buoyancy to find a bottom leak, warm the balloon in a warm-water bath to find a leak that you suspect is high in the pond bank or dam?
The FWT (red) Bright Dyes is a liquid. The Korky plumbers dye tablets (blue) are a compressed powder tablet. You can get these at Home Depot.
The blue dye is just a small tablet I threw down locally. That sinks right to the bottom for convenience.
I hadn’t thought about the buoyancy of the dye relative to the water temp, that is an interesting idea.
One could chill the liquid dye to help it to sink initially. I’m not sure how long that would maintain that temp before acclimating to the pond water temp that is surrounding it at that water level. Would be worth a try with balloons.
Happy to share our experiments and findings if they can be helpful in any way. We’re experimenting as we go. After fighting this leak for the past year, to see the significant progress here recently has been exciting. I know if you have a pond leak, you can relate to the frustration…and elation when you come across something that works. I know this won’t be a cure all for every situation….but maybe a tool to add to the tool box that may be worth a try.
I don’t know what kind of daily leak volume threshold a pond would have to be at for the dye to be helpful. We were losing 80,000-100,000 gallons per day at its worst. Would a 25,000 gallon a day leak produce enough suction to pull the dye? I’m not sure yet.
I'm curious about 'SeekLeak' You mentioned TJ helped you and in the past his go to product was 'SoilFloc' Maybe TJ can jump in and reply but I was curious if SeekLeak is the same as Soilfloc and if not, if TJ likes Seekleak better and what the differences are.
Also can you tell us how you arranged for the balloon of red dye to pop itself once it hit the bottom of your pond?
Seekleak and Soilfloc are the same product. Two part polymer…linear and cross linked. They come in two 55# bags per application. TJ has wholesale connections when you work with him that’s called Seekleak.
I’ve created about 5 videos on our leak triage adventures thus far. Feel free to follow along. I’ll share my polymer test findings in my controlled experiment here. Not my best camera work, but I think the information is helpful when considering polymer. We tried Damit before getting connected with TJ. So I ran a side by side test out of curiosity. Seekleak/soilfloc expands significantly more when I tested them.
As for popping the balloons with dye….scroll up this thread to the video where we found the leak that shows the full process. In short though, we fashioned an anchor system to bring the balloons to the bottom, and then slid a weight with spikes down the anchor line to pop the balloons. That was my father-in-law’s idea. I can’t take credit. It worked awesome!
Pond and Dam Leak Repair - Soilfloc VS Damit Side by Side Polymer Test - How To Fix a Leaking Pond
Thanks again NNAFish! Your pond is definitely clearer than mine. I've tried some dye a long time ago on the surface and got no where. Do you think blue pond dye in balloons would work? It is easy to get. Or would it be so strong that it would turn the water to blue to see? My pond is about 6 years old and still hasn't been completely full. I think it will be about a half acre, maybe a little more if I'm lucky, and about 19' deep. The fullest it has been is about 17 feet. Which it did the last 3 years in late winter,early spring. I thought it would get higher this year since it was higher at the first of the year, but it has been a bad year for rain for me. In a drought now,and the pond is the lowest it has been in 3 years or more, probably around 11'-12' deep right now. The lower it gets the less it loses per day, so it might not be losing enough to pull the dye very well right now. The last time it was at 17', it was probably losing about 1 1/4" per day. I've been looking at the cameras on line and so far I haven't seen one less than your camera, that didn't get some complaints. If I hadn't just started building a new house, I would just go for it but everything is costing way more than I hoped, especially my vault door. Lol!
Bobbss, the blue dye might work. What I read is that green or yellow dye is best for cloudy water. If you could score that color it may be better than blue. I don’t have personal experience though with murkier water. Both red and blue were easily detectible in our pond….but being clear, any color would likely work for me.
Cameras are certainly handy. I don’t want to spend your money for you. And I certainly understand with the house expenses. Prioritize the house for sure. I ice fish and enjoy the camera for that as well. It’s entertainment and functional for our pond leak diagnosis. It’s paid for itself already.”
It makes sense that your leak is less with a lower water level and less hydrostatic pressure. It has been a tough drought year for most of the country. If you could get the water higher…say 15-16, I would feel better about trying a dye experiment with more water pressure. 1 1/4” isn’t awful…and 6 years in it doesn’t appear to be getting worse. But I totally understand the frustration of not seeing the pond full.
I’ll be interested to hear your progress. At this point of the year maybe next spring would be a better time to try hoping we have a wetter winter. Gotta protect the valuables with a solid vault!
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