Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? Water well for the pond.

I turned on the water well for the pond. I just could not go any longer without water additions. The drought is kicking my butt, Rains are in the forecast but if we don't get some good rains the ground is going to suck it up before I get any run off into the pond. Even with 50 gpm it will take a long time before I get my water back to normal levels. Come on rains!

That's a great well. Joining you in the rain dance and hope they come soon.

Good luck TGW1!

August evaporation rate in Texas >>> November evaporation rate in Texas, which should make this pumping much more efficient in helping your pond.

I don't know the particulars of your aquifer or your water well. Do you have a programmable on/off control on your well? (Or by hand if you live at pond location.)

I would be sure to give the pump and the aquifer some "resting" time. When you pull the producing water level all of the way down to the casing slots, it becomes more likely for bad things to happen to either your pump or your well bore.

P.S. I am still performing rain dances here in Kansas for our wheat and all of the trees I planted at the farm. Should I face towards Texas on my next few dances?

I have probably a 1.5 acre pond and it has historically dried out almost every year unless it was a wet year. Several factors I believe contributed to it drying out but nothing confirmed like a leak. Last year when it dried out I had a contractor do some work to it and now this year, VERY DRY, it still has water in it but I think only about 20% however some ponds that aren't spring fed around here are dry. I'm having a well drilling company come to do a test drill this weekend. My question is what kind of GPM would this well need to test for if I'm going to move forward with installing it to supplement this pond?

Do you also have a dwelling at the pond?

A well is also very valuable for all of the things people do around a household. That might help you justify some of the cost of drilling the well.

Longer term it is probably not the well water production rate that matters, but how much you are willing to spend on electricity to keep your pond full.

Math for a 1.5 acre pond with no leaks, losing 1/4" per day due to evaporation:

1.5 acres x 326,000 gallons/acre-foot / 12 inches/foot x 0.25 inches/day = 10,188 gallons per day.

That only requires 7 GPM to keep full, if you could run your pump 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.

As a worst case scenario - during hot, dry weather you could lose 1/2" per day and require 14 GPM.

In practice, a larger, high-efficiency pump running only part of the time usually has much lower annual repair and electricity costs.

Of course, if your pond also leaks, then your water pumping costs will be even higher!

The electrical pumping costs are largely going to depend on the static water level in your water well. If you are "lifting" the water from a great depth, then you are going to use more electricity.

I do have the Kansas water well database in my computer. If you send me a Private Message with your legal description (section, township, and range) I could check the records of some of the nearby wells. (If you have not already done that yourself.)

Do you currently have any water available to "test" your pond, like from a creek or a neighbor with a full pond? If you filled your pond part way and filled a large barrel or tank beside the pond (for a pan evaporation test comparison), then you could determine if your pond is leaking, or just losing water due to evaporation during this Kansas drought.

Good luck on your pond rehab project!

Assure that you are using a plastic barrel. I tried it using a metal barrel during a Texas summer. That didn’t go well so I got a plastic barrel. It lost a lot less than the metal barrel during a Texas summer.

In the big Texas sun, the pan evaporation rate exceeding the evaporation rate in the pond - proves that your metal barrel has a leak!

DD1 is absolutely correct though, the closer the conditions in your "pan" match your pond, then the more accurate the test.

When testing, place the container in the pond and fill the container with pond water to the same level. This keeps temperature, etc as close as possible to the pond. If the levels stay the same, it should be evaporation if the pond level goes down it indicates a potential leak. That is how it’s done for swimming pools so in theory it should work for a pond.

Well said