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

+1 with esshup on the tree tubes.

I have game camera shots of deer balancing on their back legs to eat the tops of my trees after they have emerged from 5' tubes. I then have to add a second layer of protection.

+1 on using tree tubes to protect your expensive young trees from the dang deers.

Over the past couple years I've had young chestnuts that were ~3' tall at planting time peeking out of a 5' tube by the end of summer.

I pulled the tubes and put wire cages around four or five trees this spring and I've already got three more that need the same treatment.

Highly recommended!

We slowed the seep thru the East side of Crescent pond with the work done in '23. I had Chris come down and we walked the entire Spoil bank and found two seeps. The first was very slow and our guess was that it might, possibly be coming from Crescent pond but many other possibilities in a 2-3 acre drainage. The second was clearly from Crescent pond and was coming out of the spoil bank at ~4.8pH - very hot. Clearly from Crescent pond as in it was the narrowest point and directly across the Spoil bank from where we dug the overflow and Mose got his dozer stuck in the tale above.



To give orientation this is the overhead looking the direction of the picture above. Green lines are ATV/UTV trails



I had Moses out to look at the possibility of creating a small dyke in the valley below the seep last fall and again in this July. We agreed the clay patch on Crescent pond side in the fall of '23 didn't plug the seep and that the seep seemed to running fairly strong even through we were in a good drought. Both times he was out we reviewed the idea to equalize the water levels, which will equalize the siphon pressure between Crescent Pond the low spot of the seep. This is exactly what we did on neighbor Cliffs side in '21 and it's holding well and remains full to the overflow on dyke we installed to equalize the pressure on the West (Highwall) side. We scheduled the work to be done in early Sep and Pic above is him cutting the road into the worksite.

All the farm is heavily treed and getting the worksite prepped, i.e., cleared of up to 28" trees was 40% of the effort. With the big trackhoe it went well and nothing too dangerous. I've worked with Mose prior on dropping and clearing trees so we got thru the tangles and got them all on the ground and out of the way. Just take you time and make sure you've got clear space for barber poles and other stress/tensioned problems from being moved with the trackhoe. Any with rootballs that might compromise the dyke or were below the new pond's water level and would have died we removed.



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You can leave a hellofa hinge with a trackhoe giving a 3 tons of shove 20' up. With that much hinge they go right where you aim.



Moses, who makes his livelihood building ponds said the material we pulled from this side of the spoil bank was almost as good for the dyke as the two truckloads of clay he had brought in. Once we got the site fairly clear we packed every 18" of fill or so.



To equalize the pressure between the two bodies of water we did two things. 1st we ran the Crescent pond overflow thru the new dyke so the new little pond wouldn't have to deal with the volume of water coming from Crescent pond drainage.



2nd We took a measure at the bottom of the opening of the overflow on Crescent pond with a laser level, brought that measurement over and set the overflow of the new pond 10" above that so there's no possibility the level of Crescent pond will be lower the seep filled new pond, they'll self level to the lowest hole in the bucket - \which we anticipate to be the bottom of the overflow on the Crescent pond side. FWIW In the 200' of overflow pipe from Crescent pond thru the new dyke, we have 24" of drop. I installed the "sluices" or those 1/2 pipes on each of the ends of the overflows so the water shunts down off the back of dyke without erosion.



We finished with 18" of clay sheepfooted into the entire area of new dirt and some ways onto the spoil.



In this awful drought the seep was flowing ~ 2 gpm, Crescent pond was ~ 2.5' low. In the four days since we completed it, the dyke has collected 100's of gallons of water and or course it's soaking the nearby soil as well as filling up. I added 400# of lime and a 100# of gypsum I had left over to the bowl and dam.

Sum it up with a Before and After shot. Total time on the site work was about 14 hours over two days.

Start, 6 Sep



End with 4 days of water collection. 12 Sep.

Good job, Stressless.

That was a lot of work BEFORE you got to the "pond" parts!

Are you wetting your clay banks prior to compaction? How is your sheepsfoot working on the excavator?

We didnt wet between compaction, the excavator sheepsfoot seemed to work well, Mose, the operator is a very experienced trackhoe operator and got it done.

I'll be back at the property in a couple weeks and update. Still a drought in the area even with a couple sprinkles from Helene.

Awesome stuff!!!

You got a LOT done in 14 hours. It looks great.