To measure your evaporation just place a bucket in the pond fixed so it won't tip over and fill it with water. Evaporation from the bucket will be the same as the rest of the pond. You can easily see how much water you are losing to evaporation. The difference is leakage. Good luck with fixing it.
I was told always install a rubber roof membrane to line stock ponds from a guy who builds them because your issue isn't uncommon people say install heavy clay to line it he told me it filter out of the pond
I'm in the excavation business and remember watching this pond being built and saying to myself that won't hold water. I would suggest bringing in good clay and lining it at least 18" deep and packing it in with a sheepsfoot/padfoot.
A rip rap channel to concentrate water coming in that minimizes erosion would also be a solid idea. The fact that the shale layer is fully exposed in some areas means that bottom is full of holes. The water level is settling down where the leaks stop.
My pond is the same. I built it on a wet spot (spring) so when water table drops the pond water just flows down into the water table. My last resort idea is to line it with clay. I was hoping 6” thick but you are probably right about the thickness and compaction.
Hi the property we bought had a dam the previous owner had not been able to seal, found a product called " Damit " it's a water crystal powder just sprinkle over the dam the crystal are drawn into the leak as it absorbs water they swell plunging the leak and the dirt sediment becomes combined with the slime sealing the leak. As water level rises just sprinkle more around edges to fix any other leaks that may be present. I waited till a storm filled the dam then did the treatment within 3 days the water was now holding. Highly recommend this product, heaps easy compared to clay lining. Cheers
I’m in the excavation business myself and I’ve fixed quite a few leaking ponds here in eastern Ky. I would suggest atleast a 12” cap of clay, rolled with a sheep’s foot, a layer of Betonite mixed in with another layer of clay on top of the first 12” cap at around the same depth as well. This will seal it off and prevent it from leaking in the future.
PLEASE listen to this guy. Or Dirt Perfect Or Let's Dig 18 Quit guessing!! It isn't going to fix itself. It isn't going to silt in. Good call on waiting till spring!! But if you aren't going to take this posters advice, or DP, or LD18, just get a bulldozer and make it a flat spot.
I'm so happy about how the "French Drain" is working. Based on my experiences (that I have already shared with you) when the rain became more consistent, the quantity of water that will flow days after the rain will increase exponentially! (You might consider some rocks at the end of the flow for prevention of erosion into the pond of your sand.) You will notice the water will carry less sand as the "System" cleans itself.
Just a little thing to do before winter and spring.. I had similar issues with my pond after a drought- I pile my snow from the driveway and parking area on/in the pond area- definitely helps in spring to fill up
I own a pond business and have delt with this problem on a few ponds in my area. typically we will go around on the owners property and locate a decent source of clay that we can haul over to the pond and will go about lining it with a foot to 2' of clay over every surface. Usually we also turn the borrow area into a pond as well. Significantly cheaper than hauling it in since trucking costs are so expensive these days.
With all of the sediment coming out of the french drain, if you directed it to the center/bottom of the pond it might give you a headstart on plugging the "hole"
What good work u do. The kids skating on the ice with the painted lines was awesome.We never thought to mark our iced up lake in the past years. You speak so fluently and passionately about anything u do. It is wonderful. Take Care
I wonder if you set out a wide, shallow pan (like 2 or 3 feet diameter), filled it with pond water, put in a ruler, you could get a rough idea of evaporation. I'd make sure the water was close to the top so you're not shielding the water from any wind, etc. Set it somewhere in the pond basin so it's exposed to the same wind conditions, etc. Use a pan that doesn't have a hole in the bottom so you're not simulating the pond :)
Upon having serious droughts in past, i have installed wooden snow drift fence on west side of my pond. 10" dry snow equals 1 " of water. As snow melts, water enters pond. We have more than 30 ponds within a 2 mile radius, they seal & fill at their own rate.
Bummer Adam. Lots of water flowing out of that pipe...but it sure does seem like you have a permeable bottom in the pond somewhere. I have been a part of lining a pond with bentonite. It took 20,000+ pounds. Tilled into the bottom. I am sure there is information out there that explains application.... Good luck and thanks for sharing the update!
Our pond was down 5-6 feet most of the summer, normal leaks and evaporation. It rained a few weeks ago and it is all topped off the last three weeks, but we also have two springs that form two separate small creeks that feed it. Considering that I would look at adding more feeds if possible. Best of luck with yours, you will get there.
Adam, thank you for the update. Dad and i installed a lot of French drains. It will help out a lot. So sorry you are having problems. We used Clay and Bentonite and put pigs in there and let them root and it sealed the pond. We always tried to do work on ponds in fall winter. Usually, in winter and spring you tend to get more rain at least in our area. Have you secured a bucket of water full and check 12 and 24 hour for evaporation. Each day. That would give you a good idea on how much your pond should be evaporating the water. We also repaired leaky ponds with muskrat holes. There we had to dig down find the hole and repair it all the way through the dam and repack clay with Bentonite. Hope you get it solved and sorry you are having so many problems Adam!
I am pretty sure master pond builder "dirtperfect" would have this fixed in a jiffy. Love the pond build and I think no matter which avenue you choose to get this fixed it will be well worth it. Keep up the good work.
Master? You mean Letsdig18. He IS the master pond builder. Mike isn't bad, either one or Clint at C&C Equipment would have built the pond right from day 1.
As our pond dried up I found by walking around that I could see the water draining into the rocky substrate in one particular place, like a shower drain! Packing it with mud/clay helped at that point.
Hi Adam, greetings from Australia! Love your channel. I think you lack rain because it’s all falling in Australia, we are struggling with flooding everywhere in the eastern states. It’s been raining on and off all year and more to come! Best wishes with your new baby.
So happy for you and all your family, neighbors & friends who got this life giving rain. Now it will be fun to see what happens in the spring after the melt. One thought I have is it is deep enough that it won’t freeze solid to the bottom, that said can you experience water draining away during the winter? I would think if so the water loss might cause the ice to crack or sag to a degree??? Definitely not an engineer here. See you in the next installment.
I'm in SW Ontario almost straight across Lake Erie from where you are. We also had a dry summer. I have ponds and a wetland on my property and they are the lowest they have ever been this year and that's with no known leaks. When the wetland was first dug 12 years ago we did have a leak. It would not hold water for anything. I finally found it and it turned out to be an old clay field tile that didn't get completely plugged up when they dug it. Once it was dug up and packed back in with clay, no more leak. It sure doesn't take much to have your water level drop. It goes down a lot faster than it goes up. Good luck with your quest to find your leak. Hopefully it's something simple like mine was and you get it fixed up in the spring. Dave
Hi Adam. I have much smaller pond and it has dried up 3 times in the past 7 years in summer. We've lived here for 33 year total and have never experienced a dried up pond until about 7 years ago. That's all I can say about that. Great video as always, thank you. Todd at GSW.
Two things when building an earth dam that are a MUST. 1 the base across the entire dam needs to be ripped to a minimum of 800mm (30") and all rock, and sandy or gravel sections removed and 2 the whole area then needs to be compacted in 150mm(6") layers using a sheep foot in a 8-way cross pattern.
Im so glad you can take a joke, so many now a days take it way to personal. I only wish yall the best of success and great times when finished with the pond. Also love the videos regardless and keep up the great work
fence in the pond with a couple strands of electric fence and raise pigs during the summer letting the pigs in the pond. They will play right at the waterline and seal up the area by wallowing in the pond. At the end of the season you can have the pigs butchered and check to see if it solved your leak. Joel Salatin and other RU-vidrs have done this successfully.
@@jason27swg It might work, but you would also have pig urine and feces in your pond. They want to swim in it and be safe. I would not want to swim in it after pig did their thing in it...
Might be cheaper to have a well installed to keep it full but your plan of clay is a solid one, I think you would need around 2ft of it though, 6-8 is not going to seal it. Then you will have to dig out dirt to replace with clay.
Same. A runoff pond is a fickle beast. We didn't get the tropical storms this year in North Florida to fill our pond to carry through a winter of leakage and evaporation, so it's low like yours. We've still got some Damit pond sealer to apply....draining and lining with clay is $$$$.
Don't be surprised, after lining with clay, if you continue to lose water through the bottom once you go through another high groundwater season. The high groundwater pressure can reestablish your leaks. "Ponds are tricky," the old excavation guys would say. Good luck with it. Very interesting content!
You are too cute with that introduction!! Thanks for always giving us interesting videos!! I'm praying for you and your family and your new baby's birth. God bless y'all!! 💖🙏💖
@@AdamsMom921 That's soooo exciting, RaRa. We have a daughter named Rachal, & her little nieces & nephew call her Rara - we've all adopted the name for her!! 💕 My hubby is Pop to our Grands!! We are praying for your family & especially the new baby!! God bless all of you!! Thanks for your post!! 💓🙏💓
You'll get it filled one day and if you ever build another pond this will be good practice. Crazy water flow from the french drain during the rainfall.
As digging in Kentucky I too have been in the excavation business for 30 + years.. and I agree with him about adding 18 inches of clay as a liner.. also when we do holding cells for water treatment plants and sewer treatment plants we spread bentonite clay on the clay liner. Disc it or till it in the first 6 inches of the clay liner then sheepsfoot it in.. it's costly but will not leak..
I'm so glad you are doing these videos. I am having the same issue with my newly dug (approx 1 acre) pond. When the Spring rains come I'm going to try the French drain and siphon off a creek. Fingers crossed that it will start filling.
Install some hidden cameras around the pond. I think neighbor Doug could also be a prankster, slipping in during the night and siphoning out some of your water. Please show the video of One Eye, the pond pilferer caught in the act! (Just kidding cause I love you both!)
I have the same problem and the same rocky soil. Water seeps out thru water table and not the berm. It held for about five years but now gets worse every year. I’ve tried sealing with Bentonite but was effective as throwing hundred dollar bills in my pond. My last attempt before filling it in will be hauling in clean clay and compacting it.
Beautiful work! Have you considered resurfacing the ground layer with thick plastic liner? There are plenty of pond liners out there. Working with nature is fun. You can track not only water loss to evaporation and ground absorption, but also the rate at which both of these are taking away your water. All you need is volume of first fill, wide bucket deep in the middle of pond filled with water (isolated from pond water in a bucket), and record the time over which the volume in the bucket and the pond have gone down. I know a bit of numbers involved, but your original fill is equal to the total sum of your current available pond volume, volume lost to evaporation and volume lost to ground absorption/leaking. Good luck.
Been there, done that. I believe a liner is your best bet. I dug a 1/2 acre pond 12 feet deep and hit a limestone formation. Water ran out as fast as it ran in. After trying every repair method, including digging a second pond to use the clay to line the first pond I decided to buy a liner. You have done so much work and have a great flow now if you used a liner you would have the pond you're looking for. It's cleaner and provides you with no absorption.
It's been 15 years since I installed it. I will get you the manufacturers name and contact info. I have the nicest and most expensive pond in Butler County PA.
They do use some sort of epoxy/compound that you spread across the pond and leaking water will drag it trough the ground and it will expand sealing the leak.
With the muddy water coming out of the French drain outlet, you will wish that you had burrito wrapped the gravel surrounding the perf pipe with double punched landscape fabric as the silt fills in the voids between the rock and then fill in the perf holes. All this I’ve learned from the French drain man’s channel in Michigan. Great free entertainment.
Someday (based on the flow you are getting), you may put in a "T" and your junction - and extend your piping across your hill (in front of the house) to catch even more water!
ADAM, sure hope it's a cheap fix, and not having to say ,... " Money out the window"... " Water over the Dam" !! Keep at it, keep your dreams alive, positivity breeds success!
I fixed my pond wirh dammit pond sealer. I thought it was snake oil but it worked. Water level was dropping about 8" a day. I applied with a low water level. As water level increased (rain or adding water) i applied it to the new area that was filled. Doing it gradually like this allowed me to apply it from shore.
Bamabass had a problem with their 5 acre pond and they seal it up with a product that they just put into the water. But they put a heavy clay liner in to start with. Good luck.
They make a two park powder that you spread across the pond that sinks and seals off any water that is leaking out through clay or whatever you have used for a lining
That french drain was really flowing. Gate City Foundation always does french drains like that with the open top and no landscaping fabric to get clogged. I don't know if you watch his channel but I'm sure he'd be proud of the flow you got lol.
Austrian Permaculture pioneer Sepp Holzer has built a lot of ponds, including some high up on mountainsslopes. According to him, A) you can get ponds to be "tight" with pretty much any soil other than sheer sand, and B), complete tightness is actually not desirable. Natural ponds have varying water levels, and water being drawn into the surrounding earth increases fertility there, one of the main reasons he builds ponds in the first place. But, assuming you want yours primarily for the water/aesthetics, he would probably do several things. Firstly, dig down deep enough to find a watertight layer (say, sheer clay), even if that means digging a deep trench first where your dam/levee is going to be. Then build up the dam on top of that from only very fine material, i.e., separate fine and coarse first (he let's the excavator drop the material onto heaps from a height, so bigger stones/pebbles "roll away". Make sure there's no organic material in the dam (you did that anyway, it seems). The most interesting technique, I think, he took from his pigs. They are able to make a mudbath for themselves in pretty much any soil. The way they do it is by digging their snouts into the soil when it's WET, basically kneading the soil. He uses that to seal the soles of his ponds, by filling in a few feet of water, and letting the heavy excavator in to knead. For that he uses a longish, narrow excavator bucket which is rammed down into the mud in a back and forth movement (many times, obviously). Just imagine how a pig would do it, basically. He never uses pond liners, let alone concrete, because it makes the water go stale and dead, and separates it from surrounding soil, which is not at all what it's supposed to be for fertility. There's quite a few videos on him and his approach, in English...
A couple of things you could possibly do... 1. Try that additive you used one before and apply it heavy this time. 2. Have clay hauled in to redo the bottom of the pond. 3. Have Bentonite (same stuff as in kitty litter) applied as a seal on the bottom. 4. I would also consider putting a bigger siphon in (or, a second one) to draw even more water. Working with nature, sometimes you just have to be patient. Another thing that I have used to seal sheetpile cassions in construction is to spread ground grain around the outside of the cassion and let it follow the leaks and plug them up. Worked on some serious leaks while pumping the cassion out, might work here as well.
I certainly feel for ya.. I'm going through the exact same thing on my pond. I'm trying to find ways to catch more runoff to offset the water loss just like you did. My project started with 1/2 acre existing pond that needed fixed and expanded to 1 acre. The contractor that just didn't do the job right. Clay in my area is not a reasonalble option, but a very good idea if you have it local. It's been 3yrs, 3 excavationsa and two contractors later, I'm still chasing a solution to the probem. If I started over, I'd bury an EPDM liner and call it done. I've also used 1.5 tons of polymer sealent (enought to seal 1 acre) that is referred to in the comments, and quitely frankly not a fan of the solution.
Why not try a liner. If you bring clay in, you think it should fix the issue. With a liner you know it will. Maybe more expensive, but if you have to keep revisiting the pond leaks then a liner may end up being cheaper. Either way, good luck!
My understanding is that pond liners last 10 years. That’s a costly long term solution. I’d think a clay liner would be more cost effective but I’ve never tried either.
The water coming from your french drain looks like its carrying sediment. Hopefully that doesn't lead to drain failure or too much sedimentation in the pond.
The French drain is working great, but, I see a lot of dirt washing into the pond from the ditch. I think your best bet, would be to dig out about 3 feet all around and as you said, fill it back with clay! Q. Ditch your siphon pick up volume with the heavier creek flow?
Hey BossMan you should contact Bama Bass RU-vid channel. His pond was leaking and he put a 2 part polymer in it, to seal it. You can ask him what it was called. It sealed his leaks!
Bentonite is a water loving clay used to line ponds and plug drill holes for a variety of reasons. Bentonite swells and incorporates into its structure preventing the water from leaking out.
What about having a well drilling company test a few holes to find a good flowing well to feed the pond? You might get lucky like I did and find a geyser that pumps a ton of water. My pond doesn't leak, but it stays full year round.
Just watching y’all but man, just look up a sealing polymer. Shalex makes one called damit. Irriseal is another etc. literally just sprinkle it in. Water in pond already. It seals leaks. Probably cheaper than your clay being brought in. Stoney ridge farmer has a vid on it. So does bama bass. He did it on a 5 acre dam. It worked. 👍 good luck
theres some kind of silica powder that makes even normal sand seal the water better, it lasts for years if not decades, and its neutral for plants and wildlife
There is also a patching stuff that you can put in it and that could help. BUT, you have no idea where the leak is so that is a problem for sure! Good luck!
I say that sealer you tried needs to step up and fund this effort. Lay that stuff on thick and be done. If it works they sell it like crazy, to me included. I’m ready to fill mine in.
9:03 little waterfall coming into your pond behind the french drain pipe. I don't know if it's going through the soil or leaking down from the top, but it looks like too much to be coming from the top and if it's going through the soil the pond will leak out just as fast.
I've built many ponds in south Texas. If you're pumping in that much water, it's leaking like a sieve. Absolutely zero chance of losing that much water due to evap. Nothing you can do externally. Bentonite is in your future.
Put bentonite in it I had to, to stop my pond from the leak it worked real well , several people OLD people said pin some hogs in it to stomp it down for a couple of months several differnt people said they knew it works thats what they did in the old days . I used about 50 bags of bentonite cost about 300 bucs. I used powdered and granual
I'm not from around there, but the water in the pond looks unnaturally clear. Did you add dye/clarifier to the water? If you stir it all up and get the water nice and muddy, then the clay can settle and plug the leaks on its own as it settles out. Once the dam is holding water, then worry about it looking nice. An established dam will settle out and clean its self over time, if you keep the livestock out of it. A friend had a leaking dam, so they let the water get to about 1' deep, then let his kids and mates cut loose in it on their trail bikes and 4 wheelers. Chewed up the bottom, spread mud everywhere and the dam sealed next time it rained. Another guy I knew swore by gelignite. He'd throw a few charges in, stir everything up and the concussion would also compact the layers of soil under the water
Plant some trees arround the pond to shade it and prevent evaporation, that also will stabilize the edges and prevent leakings by absorbing part of the water
Could you use a Sealant? Something like SOILFLOC pond sealant? Some other channels (bamba bass and some others) you spread it out over the pond and it plugs the leaks. Looks like its not too difficult to apply either.
