Hello Pond boss friends. I have been on here for a few years mainly reading and trying to catch up. This will be the first big story then I will follow up with questions in the different sub groups. I had become a member on here a few years ago when my pond was new and had sense lost my username and password stuff so I rejoined so to speak. Like many stories I started my pond project without the great aid of this forum as I didn’t find it till after our pond was dug. As digging my contractor found somewhat of a gravel vein so to speak so we had to dig below that for the core and dam, this ended up making the dam end (deep end) 18 feet deep with steep sides. The rain started and the money got short due to the extra digging so we stopped hoping the water would fill the dam end and “backwater” into the shallow areas knowing if it did that we could always dig and pack this end in the future. There are acres of runoff so the pond filled with a size between ¾ acre and 1 acre. (closer to the ¾). Then the water level dropped. This went on for about 5 years and would always stop leaking at around a 6 foot depth. It was up and down. As you can imagine it was a sickening eyesore so to speak. Last year I rented a giant pump and drained it with the understanding a guy was going to start bringing in better clay to reline it and as is sometimes common after a month it rained again and was so I couldn’t do anything. During the years I had measured a consistent daily drop of 7 inches so it was huge. The pond would drain in days. I started researching the soilfloc and decided as a last ditch effort I would try it. I was very skeptical as most are since there is not any typical magic powder for ponds. My plan was to wait till it rained and got the deep end filled this is about 1/3 of an acre and 12 feet deep. It was calculated I should use 3 units for this area. I purchased this and sat it at the ready knowing rain was possible. July 4th I woke up to an almost full pond again, fuller than I had planned for. I was going to wait for it to drop some to the smaller plan but my wife repeated what I had told her that it was a gamble and lets just do it. She convinced me to start. We concentrated 1 unit over the deep end we knew the leak was in this area since it always drained down to that level. The wind picked up and we called it quits with only 1 of the 3 units in. We put a stake in the ground to measure from expecting like last time I would need to move it about every day. I took diligent notes. The first day we lost 3 inches of water. I then waded out and put a more permanent stake in the next day. In 12 hours we lost 1 inch. It had stabilized to around 2 inches for a few days. We are not a month and a few days into it and I am now losing an average of 1 inch per day. Ok so that is still a loss, I know evaporation is around ¼ to 1/3 inch per day. We have had more rain so it has come up and down and I have taken all that into account with starting over on measurements after the rain. I still have the other 2 units to apply and will soon. Long long story short I am thrilled. I never imagined the pond would stay at the level it is. I know my long story is not the normal from this use but this stuff worked on my situation. I was probably lucky in some ways. I don’t know where the leak is at now. It has stayed up so it could still be in the deep end or also in part the other end as it has never held water for this length up there. I now have weeds and had a bloom right away that my other posts will cover plus aeration. Thanks for reading. A happy pond owner. Dave
