enough stream to keep a pond alive?

[MRHURT]

I was thinking about digging a pond that would be feed from the small creek that runs in front of my house. this creek runs until about august, is slowing down this time of year, and comes back to life about late september or early october. If i have a pond about 1/2 to 1 acre in size and i don't know is 4 ft a good depth?
do you think this creek will keep the pond alive? i would like to have fish and stuff in it.
haven't done anything yet, just checking to see if all my effort would be wasted or not.

 

[popabear]

I have a pond with no stream in Southern Mi. it is just filled from rain and snow melt. It has stayed with in 12 to 20 inches from full for the past 12 years. I have one advantage it is all clay lined. Some of the sand walled ponds in our area get pretty low this time of year but have never dried up. We were told it had to be at least 16 feet deep so it would be self cleaning. I have Channel Cats in it and have no problem keeping them alive. Now froge are another problem the Blue Herons love them for dinner.

 

[MRHURT]

clay lined i think we can handle, living in the mountains here in virginia all we have is slate and clay.
wow does it have to be 16 ft deep or is that just how deep you made it?
may be a dumb question but what is self cleaning pertaining to a pond?

 

[MarkV]

I think you have enough water from what you described. There are many ponds that only have run off for a feed and work fine. The art is in the building and compacting of the clay. The clay is great but a vein of slate can work as a drain if not dug and back filled with compacted clay. An excavation contractor with experience building ponds and dams is real important. A good web site to ask your question is www.PONDBOSS.COM there are number of pond management professional on the site that are willing to offer help. I recently used one to evaluate a 6 acre pond on a piece of property we bought.

MarkV

 

[wasabi]

I agree with Mark. Sounds like you have plenty of water flow. As for depth, I think it depends in part on your exposure to the elements. Deeper can help deter algae and is nice for swimming.

Sabi

 

[rmorgan]

MrHurt--

A pond fed by a clear, clean stream is wonderful. A pond fed by a stream with septic runoff, agricultural runoff, or who knows what in it, can be a real problem. Unless you absolutely know the condition of the water in the creek, a water quality analysis is a must--although the creek could be a huge plus, it might be that you'd be better off avoiding, rather than collecting, its water. Seems to me that counting on a small creek to fill an acre pond and keep it full is asking a lot; I'd think you would want to engineer it so that there is also watershed draining into it, so that you are capturing rain water as well as creek water. Four feet deep is mighty shallow--say you get a 12" evaporation during the period your creek is slow and the weather is hot--then you've got a 3' deep pond. And in a bad year, it might be a puddle. 8' is good, and 10-12' is better. Also, in a shallow pond, sunlight will penetrate to the bottom and weeds will be able to grow across the whole thing, and the water will heat up significantly in the summer time--and cattails, etc. which can be nice around the margin of a deeper pond will fill a shallow pond unless you eradicate them. Here is a link to a good site from the Alabama Extension Service which has some good pond-planning information (although tailored to Alabama conditions); my guess is that the Virginia Extension Service likewise would be a huge help to you; also that there are experienced pond excavators in the area who can tell you more in an hour than you can learn in a month of Sundays on your own. Soil conditions, compaction requirements, proper dam construction and the like are mission-critical things that you absolutely have to know before you start, or things can head south pretty darn fast.

All that said--having a pond is a lot of work and a pure joy. A picture of ours from Sunday is attached as proof!

 

[Boondox]

One thing nobody else has mentioned, and that varies from state to state, are the laws governing "interference" with streams. Our pond is fed by a spring year round, and by a stream seasonally...but it was made before the laws changed. Now, we can't make any modifications to our pond other than dredging out the sediment now and then because of that stream. And creating a new pond fed by a stream these days is strictly forbidden unless you're a beaver...or can convince one to take up residence on your property. The fines up here can be horrendous depending on how blatant a violation you committed.

Pete

 

[MarkV]

Pete makes an excellent point about the local regulations that come into play when you have a pond. Because of a dam failure a number of years ago Georgia passed some laws to protect property down stream of private ponds. As with many regulations the standards are extreme in the opinion of pond management professionals and pond builders I have talked to. We recently purchased a property that includes a 6-acre pond and were advised by our attorney, real-estate agent, insurance agent and finally a pond management professional that it was essential to have the dam's structural integrity inspected before we signed any papers. Apparently if the "dam police" feel there is a problem with your dam they can and will require the pond be drained and the dam rebuilt at a standard which is financially unrealistic for most. You can imagine what a 6 acre muddy hole or a 40k dam rebuilding can do to the value of your property. I had no idea but was glad to receive the advice before we bought and luckily there were no problems with ours.

I have been doing a fair amount of reading and hired a pond management professional that has given me a great deal of information recently. From the little I understand you really need to determine what you want a pond to do before you decide on how it should be built. For example if your goal is to create a habitat that will produce fish you want depths that vary though out the pond. Fish feed and breed, for the most part in water 4' or less and use deeper water to enter thermal clines during hotter parts of the year. You would want to add "structure", such as anchored X-mas trees for protection of fingerlings to maintain an on going population. Then there is fertilizing and liming to promote plankton growth, weed control, oxygen levels and stocking ratios. It is quite a science and can get rather expensive to raise trophy fish. If you are just looking for an attractive water feature the criteria are all together different.

I hope Fishman will see this thread and offer is advice. He is a pond management professional and was very helpful to me as I tried to understand what I needed to know about ponds before buying.

MarkV

 

[MRHURT]

thanks for all the input, as far as regulations. i asked around and i was told that as long as i did not disturb the natural flow of the stream i was ok. if i just feed water from the stream to the pond via gravity, then i was ok. but if i changed the stream and then it broke, watch out for the lawsuits.

sounds like to have a really nice pond this could be more complex than i thought /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

 

[fishman]

Sir Hurt,

I think MarkV and RMorgan pretty much covered it. I too suggest going to Pondboss and doing some looking around if you have some spare time. 4' is really too shallow as RM said. Water input is only one portion of the equation, soil type and watershed use are also important as well as the actual design and construction of the dam.