Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Soil questions SoilFloc Polymer Sealant

TJ-

I've just read through this entire thread. Very interesting. Initially I was looking at Damit but now I'm sold on the 2 part polymer in case I need it.

I have a 1 acre lot on a slope overlooking the Arkansas river in Broken Arrow, OK. A lot of sandy soil to say the least. 1/4 of my property is a deep and steep 'canyon' about 30ft wide with steep walls on either side. I'm having a contractor come in a week to excavate about a 100ft x 30ft strip through that canyon, using the best material he can find there to berm up the end. He'll install 2 culvert pipes in the dam as overflow. I have 10 drains from various ground catch basins and downspouts that collect at this one area, water from much of my neighbors' lots and my lot. So I get a lot of water drainage that moves through there. Instead of watching the canyon get deeper and wider, I thought I'd build a little pond.

Can you get me started on a plan for what to watch for and when to possibly act on treating with the polymer?

Thank you,

Steve

Hi Steve:

I help folks nationwide seal leaking ponds and my time is free to my Pond Boss Forum Family. Feel free to reach out any time - happy to help however I can.

tj@hudlandmgmt.com
402.730.4897

Sent you an email.

There is a decorative PVC film pond on the property, which is leaking a lot - somewhere torn. Our neighbors covered the pond with thick polyethylene film. It lasted three years.
I was thinking, if the pond is leaking - maybe it's better to pump out the water, dry it out and see if the damage is not critical, then seal it with a suitable sealant https://sealwithease.com/concrete-sealer/.
Another question: can I top it with something else, less expensive, for a 32.81-foot pond?
Will a thick plastic sheeting hold the water?

Thick sheeting should work for awhile. However it is succeptible, over time, to sunshine.

Interested in what TJ is selling, I will get an email off this weekend, thanks; Ed

The polymers work very well.

BTL (Bend Tarp Liner) makes lightweight liners that are guaranteed for 10 to (I believe) 25 years UV rating. They last a LOT longer than that if you cover them with soil. They also don't require a goetextile fabric underlayment. The thinnest one is very lightweight, I had them spec out one for a 1.25 acre pond and it weighed around 4,000 pounds - all one piece.

I know it keeps expanding for a few weeks, but for all of you that has treated your pond with polymer, how long did you keep seeing improvements getting better after treatment??

Crosslinked polymer continues to expand over the course of 3 weeks. During this time leak abatement can continue.

Thanks TJ!

I knew the process was somewhat time dependent, but couldn't recall the exact parameters.

Thanks TJ!

Hi all,
An update from an application performed 3 years ago:
I set out a full large jar of pond water on my dock all year, just to compare its level to the pond level over time, as things were looking very promising. It turns out the jar and pond level are quite well matched now! My pond’s seepage/leaks appear to have been addressed with SoilFloc. Over some time periods, the jar lost water faster than the pond, which I assume the jar heated faster on the dock than the main basin leading to quicker evaporation.

In all, it is wonderful to have materials like this to address poor or unlucky pond construction. Very pleased with the results beyond expectations.

A long cry from the first few years where I was losing a substantial amount of water every day, with rivulets of water on the dam backside.

I’m not sure how many years it’s been since I did the soil floc treatment. I’m guessing at least five. I used to have a wet spot behind the dam. It was actually in the base of the original ravine coming out behind the dam. A permanent puddle, that when I looked closely, had a very slight current. It was always there.
I was back behind the dam a few days ago. Haven’t been there in a few years, as it’s been taken over by briars and poison ivy. It was bone dry a few days ago. I’m confident that the soil floc had a part in that.
We encountered a lot of very rocky soil during construction. One of the dozer operators told me I should give up on the pond, because that much rock it would never hold water.

I hadn't heard your whole story before, SetterGuy.

Sounds like you had an excellent pond builder to create your pond in those tough soil conditions. And then had TJ's crosslink polymer to finish off the sealing job.

I would advise checking that old wet spot one more time this winter after all of your plants go dormant.

I am always amazed how much water my tallgrass prairie and trees suck up while actively growing. My creek and groundwater ponds frequently rise without receiving any rain, AFTER everything goes dormant for the winter.

(Just wanted you to check that the growth on the backside of your dam is not intercepting all of the water flow that used to create the wet spot in the ravine.)

I’ll take a look FR I’ve got to get something down on those stumps that will hopefully kill the tree. That seep behind the dam was there for several years. It had a weird orange algae growing in it. I used to get down there all the time and check it. (Plus worry about it). When the water level drop slowed down so that my pond looked like all the neighbors ponds in terms of water levels and the drought, I quit worrying and checking it. Plus the briars and poison ivy kept me away. Ha!

I have poison ivy and ticks that keep me out of the areas where I should be doing property maintenance.

I can get a poison ivy reaction just mowing on the tractor!

If you absolutely must get down in there to kill a few more trees, you can try girdling or frilling. (Or those techniques plus herbicide.)

Read up on those techniques and get your axe really sharp, and then you should be able to readily kill some of your big trees.

Girdling is usually most effective in the late spring when the trees have sent the maximum energy reserves from the roots to the treetop to grow leaves. Perhaps make a few paths through the poison ivy and briars this spring so you can safely reach your big trees. I like Crossbow for poison ivy.

(I get Crossbow herbicide pretty cheap from my county Noxious Weed Dept. That stuff is great on poison ivy and won't harm grass.)

Rod, I’m also allergic to the ivy. I use a broad leaf weed killer out of a pump up sprayer.

Here’s a pic of the rocks along the eastern edge of the pond. When the bulldozer uncovered these, I was told to give upon the pond. It would never hold water.
I used to get poison ivy very bad. But I slowly built up resistance to it. I still get a few blisters, but it doesn’t spread, and I no longer get big patches of it. I e got a few blisters now from working back behind the dam. I found a pike saw extension for my craftsman weed eater. It’s a game changer for me. I was able to cut trees down from 12’ away. [img]https://app.photobucket.com/share/69dbf856-c53a-4473-a6e5-16772a7d9a80[/img]

Setter your link to photobucket isn't pulling up a single picture but linking to your entire photobucket account. Is there a new picture of your pike saw for your weed eater? Curiuos

CC. Photobucket has redone the website, again.. I can’t figure out how to link one picture here. I’ll try to figure it out. I just had a pic of the rocky bank. The pole saw is pretty typical. The only thing unique about it was that I found it on FB marketplace for cheap.. It had never been used (the blade was on backwards). And it had the extra 24” extension. I still can’t get a single photo to come up here. I think this link gets to the one picture I wanted to post. (Shows the amount of rock in the clay)
[img]https://photobucket.com/share/258a93e4-458a-4fc1-a660-6412bc5b34fe[/img]

for some reason the photos are not showing up inline in the message either, even though it appears you are using the hosting tool to embed a picture correctly. I wonder if a mod can see why the full page editor and using the icon to embed a photo using a proper hosting site is not allowing the picture to embed in the message anymore?

It's beyond my pay grade. I saved it to my imgur account, and it still won't post properly Maybe another Mod that knows computers better than I do can fix it?

Setterguy, try adding .jpeg to the end of the url in your image link. It should work then.

It’s still not working. Photobucket changed something. It’s totally different than it was last week.

https://hosting.photobucket.com/ddb...?width=590&height=590&fit=bounds

Above is the image link at photobucket. If you take off everything after the jpeg extension it will work. Should look like

https://hosting.photobucket.com/ddb...cbe3342-42ed-4a0f-88b8-58f9d60ff0f3.jpeg