oosik
Epic Contributor
My little lake - Martin Lk - ten acres. Five acres - open water / five acres - cattails. It's 80 feet deep and was made by Mother Nature. This is the view off my front porch. Yes - it was cold when I took this shot.
Building Lake Corona
- Thread starter jk96
- Start date
- Views: 220363
Eddie i havent looked in a long time so I checked the backside of the dam this afternoon. This is a pic of the ditch that used to run where the center of rhe dam is. Dam is in the background. No standing or running water. Soil was damp but that isn't unexpected as this is the lowest area around, about 8 feet lower than the bottom of the pond and lower than where I was hitting water digging the pond.
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bindian
Super Member
I would dig the wet area up and see if any flow increases. Dry weather and sunshine always draws water to it.
I could but I'm not sure that is going to indicate a leak unless there is a lot of flow as any digging at this lower elevation is going to hit water just under the surface due to the water table. I hit water digging the pond 10 feet or more higher. This area is about 75 feet north of the base of the dam. Everything between is bone dry.
Edit to add this is an area I would expect to see water, nothing unusual as water/moisture has always been present in these low lying ditches running the property.
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EddieWalker
Epic Contributor
I'm sure that you are right about the lack of run off being the issue with filling the pond, but I still wonder if there is a leak.
Do you have a yardstick, or something at the edge of your water to tell you how much it rises when it rains? and how quickly it goes back down? Or does it stay at that level over an extended period of time?
When I built my pond, I put the yardstick in the ground so the small numbers where in the upward position. I used my laser level to figure out where full was and that's where the top of the yardstick was. When the pond was full, the yardstick was under water. When the pond dropped one in, then one inch was sticking up from the yardstick.
I think everyone that builds a pond worries about leaks, and when the water level drops, you have to wonder why?
In my case, I was able to monitor my water loss over a couple of years to see that it was related to the temperatures. In summer, I lose a couple inches a week, in winter, and cool temps, it doesn't change. I was able to figure out how much run off I was getting, and then I was able to dig ditches to increase my run off from all over my land, and measure those results too. I've been slowly clearing my trees and creating more pasture, but I haven't really noticed much of an increase from that.
Evaporation is what it is and you can't stop it. There are two types of leaks. One that's following a path, like along a tree root, or gopher hole, and the really bad one, where the water is absorbing into the ground, all around the pond.
How good is your soil for holding water? If the water is sinking into the ground above the pond, in the trees, is it doing the same when it gets to the pond?
Did you test your soil for holding water? The most common test is just picking up a handful of damp soil and squeezing it into a ball in your hand. If the soil compacts, becomes solid and water oozes out of the soil, you should be good. If it remains loose, and you cannot see the shape of your fingers in the soil after squeezing it, you might have a problem.
Is the soil the same throughout the pond? When I dug mine, I found three different types of clay. Red, gray and deep brown. Fortunately, they all hold water and mixed together well. In one area I found a pocket of sand. I dug it out several feet in all directions so I was 100% sure that I had exposed all of it, and then I filled in the hole with red clay and compacted it. That was the area that I expected to have a leak, but I got lucky and it worked.
When compacting soil, the best tool is a vibrating sheeps foot roller. Since nobody is going to buy or rent one for building a pond, the next best thing is whatever has the most weight in the smallest footprint. Anything with tracks is the worse machine to use. My dozer weighs 40,000 pound and it's terrible at compacting soil. My backhoe weighs 14,000 pounds, and with a full yard of dirt in the front bucket, I can drive over my dozer tracks and sink down several inches. My dump truck holds five yards of dirt. I don't know what it weighs, but I drove it over my dam repeatedly with a full load of dirt to compact my dozer tracks. I felt the results from the dump truck and the backhoe with dirt in them was about the same. But I still drove both of them over my dam with each layer of dirt until the dozer tracks where all gone, then I did it over again with each layer as I built it up. My dam is 960 feet long, but only 6 to 8 feet tall. My pond is dug down into the clay, and then the dam is built up from the original ground.
Before digging the pond, or building up the dam, I created a keyway with my back. Basically I dug a 4 foot deep and 4 foot wide trench where my dam was going to go, and then when I built up the dam, I drove over the dirt in the trench with my backhoe to compact it. Then I built the dam up from there.
The keyway is supposed to stop a dam from sliding under pressure from the water behind the dam, but it also creates a break in the path for water to work it's way under the dam. Water will go over the virgin soil, and under the dam soil, if there isn't anything to block it.
I sometimes worry that I didn't make my keyway big enough, but so far, it seems to have worked. I later learned that most professional dam builders make the key way wide enough for a dozer to drive through it, and then they compact with a sheepsfoot roller to built it up.
Do you have a yardstick, or something at the edge of your water to tell you how much it rises when it rains? and how quickly it goes back down? Or does it stay at that level over an extended period of time?
When I built my pond, I put the yardstick in the ground so the small numbers where in the upward position. I used my laser level to figure out where full was and that's where the top of the yardstick was. When the pond was full, the yardstick was under water. When the pond dropped one in, then one inch was sticking up from the yardstick.
I think everyone that builds a pond worries about leaks, and when the water level drops, you have to wonder why?
In my case, I was able to monitor my water loss over a couple of years to see that it was related to the temperatures. In summer, I lose a couple inches a week, in winter, and cool temps, it doesn't change. I was able to figure out how much run off I was getting, and then I was able to dig ditches to increase my run off from all over my land, and measure those results too. I've been slowly clearing my trees and creating more pasture, but I haven't really noticed much of an increase from that.
Evaporation is what it is and you can't stop it. There are two types of leaks. One that's following a path, like along a tree root, or gopher hole, and the really bad one, where the water is absorbing into the ground, all around the pond.
How good is your soil for holding water? If the water is sinking into the ground above the pond, in the trees, is it doing the same when it gets to the pond?
Did you test your soil for holding water? The most common test is just picking up a handful of damp soil and squeezing it into a ball in your hand. If the soil compacts, becomes solid and water oozes out of the soil, you should be good. If it remains loose, and you cannot see the shape of your fingers in the soil after squeezing it, you might have a problem.
Is the soil the same throughout the pond? When I dug mine, I found three different types of clay. Red, gray and deep brown. Fortunately, they all hold water and mixed together well. In one area I found a pocket of sand. I dug it out several feet in all directions so I was 100% sure that I had exposed all of it, and then I filled in the hole with red clay and compacted it. That was the area that I expected to have a leak, but I got lucky and it worked.
When compacting soil, the best tool is a vibrating sheeps foot roller. Since nobody is going to buy or rent one for building a pond, the next best thing is whatever has the most weight in the smallest footprint. Anything with tracks is the worse machine to use. My dozer weighs 40,000 pound and it's terrible at compacting soil. My backhoe weighs 14,000 pounds, and with a full yard of dirt in the front bucket, I can drive over my dozer tracks and sink down several inches. My dump truck holds five yards of dirt. I don't know what it weighs, but I drove it over my dam repeatedly with a full load of dirt to compact my dozer tracks. I felt the results from the dump truck and the backhoe with dirt in them was about the same. But I still drove both of them over my dam with each layer of dirt until the dozer tracks where all gone, then I did it over again with each layer as I built it up. My dam is 960 feet long, but only 6 to 8 feet tall. My pond is dug down into the clay, and then the dam is built up from the original ground.
Before digging the pond, or building up the dam, I created a keyway with my back. Basically I dug a 4 foot deep and 4 foot wide trench where my dam was going to go, and then when I built up the dam, I drove over the dirt in the trench with my backhoe to compact it. Then I built the dam up from there.
The keyway is supposed to stop a dam from sliding under pressure from the water behind the dam, but it also creates a break in the path for water to work it's way under the dam. Water will go over the virgin soil, and under the dam soil, if there isn't anything to block it.
I sometimes worry that I didn't make my keyway big enough, but so far, it seems to have worked. I later learned that most professional dam builders make the key way wide enough for a dozer to drive through it, and then they compact with a sheepsfoot roller to built it up.
I'm pretty confident in the pond itself. All grey clay, dam was keyed, no signs of leaks downstream of the dam. At the moment the one thing I know is that I have a lack of watershed. If that can't be fixed then everything else is mute. Doesn't matter if it leaks if there is not enough water to fill it to begin with. Once I can see if the work I've done has increased the watershed enough then I can address any issues with leakage if needed. At the moment there just isn't any reason to spend time on that.
Started early this morning and pretty much wrapped up with cleaning up around the pond. Here's a few pics.
East side of pond
20241012_115733
West side of pond
20241012_120056
South side looking down toward the pond
20241012_123203
East side of pond
20241012_115733West side of pond
20241012_120056South side looking down toward the pond
20241012_123203
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HawkinsHollow
Veteran Member
Man, if you can ever get that pond to fill in you will have a beautiful spot. I love the look of a pasture with decent tree cover but little undergrowth.
Eagle1
Epic Contributor
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I'm in south central MO with a 12+ acre pond that has almost 1000 acres of watershed most hills and trees. Been so dry here we are down over 3 ft but a 5-6" rain would fill it most of the way. MO is like that some years we go down several feet and other years I goes over the emergency spillway every other rain. Also been know to flood the entire holler.
Eddie here's a visual of the grey and red clay I'm working with. Cleaning up some muck around the edges today while the water is low and made a couple of cuts down to the clay base for pics. You can work this stuff like pottery and holds water with no issue.
20241013_153034 by jjk96, on Flickr
20241013_151233
20241013_133456
20241013_153034 by jjk96, on Flickr20241013_15123320241013_133456
bindian
Super Member
What you are calling gray clay looks to me like my yellow/sandy loamy clay. It will leak down way faster then the red clay.
75% of my big pond is that way and goes down fast with no rain and sunshine.
My small pond is all red clay. People think clay doesn't leak. But when I was digging it, it would be empty at night and the next morning have about 4 inches of clear water in the solid red basin.
75% of my big pond is that way and goes down fast with no rain and sunshine.
My small pond is all red clay. People think clay doesn't leak. But when I was digging it, it would be empty at night and the next morning have about 4 inches of clear water in the solid red basin.
It doesn't seem to have any sand at all in it but maybe it is a problem if your correct. Temps here are 60s to low 70s for the next week so evaporation should no longer be an issue. I'll drop a yard stick in the water tomorrow and see what happens over the next week.
bindian
Super Member
Good luck. My pond goes down fast, but with lots of watershed, it fills up fast.
When I dug it back in 2012, we were bone dry and a 4 inch downpour over 2 hours, filled the pond. The dam wasn't quite finished and I rushed to buy a water pump to lower water level and dam pressure.
When I dug it back in 2012, we were bone dry and a 4 inch downpour over 2 hours, filled the pond. The dam wasn't quite finished and I rushed to buy a water pump to lower water level and dam pressure.
EddieWalker
Epic Contributor
I love that you made a cup out of your clay!!!! That's just awesome!!!
The red clay looks to be about the best possible material that you could have. Where you able to test the grey clay?
I forgot to mention my other pond. It's the first one that I dug, and it's only 3/4 of an acre. It gets a lot of water shed, and regularly goes several feet above the drain pipe. That pipe flows into a ditch that goes to my big pond.
When digging that small pond, I hit a layer of grey clay that was kind of odd. It holds water so good that with just small amounts of water on it, the water beads up like it's on glass with RainX on it. But when it's dug, it's impossible to compact it again. It just doesn't hold together, and nothing really grows in it either. I've mixed a bunch of it up with my red clay in my dirt pile, and it's all blended together for fill material, but I would never use it for a dam.
I think you're on the right track with improving your water shed. Once you get a good cover of grass over that dirt, it will shed a massive amount of water to your pond.
The red clay looks to be about the best possible material that you could have. Where you able to test the grey clay?
I forgot to mention my other pond. It's the first one that I dug, and it's only 3/4 of an acre. It gets a lot of water shed, and regularly goes several feet above the drain pipe. That pipe flows into a ditch that goes to my big pond.
When digging that small pond, I hit a layer of grey clay that was kind of odd. It holds water so good that with just small amounts of water on it, the water beads up like it's on glass with RainX on it. But when it's dug, it's impossible to compact it again. It just doesn't hold together, and nothing really grows in it either. I've mixed a bunch of it up with my red clay in my dirt pile, and it's all blended together for fill material, but I would never use it for a dam.
I think you're on the right track with improving your water shed. Once you get a good cover of grass over that dirt, it will shed a massive amount of water to your pond.
dodge man
Super Star Member
Unless you have a sand seam or something in the bottom that clay is good material. I think you get some wet weather it will fill up.
ponytug
Super Member
Often with clay, if it dries a little, it can be tough to rehydrate and compact. Sometimes you have to let the clay get bone dry, then start the compaction/resetting cycle. The type of clay, and pH has a lot to do with it.
Red vs yellow vs grey can be almost the same clay with the trace iron in the clay at slightly different oxidation levels, fully oxidized, partially oxidized, and reduced (haematite), respectively. Locally, the color may tell you a lot, but less so over larger distances. If there is a good county agent locally, they may have better insights.
All the best,
Peter
Yes - it's workable as well very similar to the red. You can roll it like play-doh and doesn't crumble like normal soil when pressed into thin ribbons.
