Pond inlet: How to filter out silt / muck ?

[Coyote machine]

My small 1/2 +/- acre pond has a steady flow of water from high land springs. The inlet flow brings tons of fine silt, muck, mud, and vegetation to the pond. This fills up the pond and creates vegetation at/on the surface.
I'd like to find out how to stop this process, and have a way to get the water going to the pond be clear running water only. Is there a way to do this effectively, and hopefully economically, with as low maintenance as possible?

I've thought about using landscape fabric and rocks to create a filter point only water would pass through to the pond. Beyond that I'm stumped, because I feel the filter fabric would just jam up and need constant cleaning.
I have too many other things that need constant attention to be cleaning a filter frequently.

Any ideas from pond guru's would be appreciated!:thumbsup:

TIA,

CM

 

[jaotguy]

how far away are the springs ? if on your land and not too far , simply pour a cement collar around one of them , and install a plastic pipe to funnel the water to the pond .....

if too far / not on your land , raise the water level flow to a higher level , drain into a 45 gallon plastic drum with a plastic valve near the bottom to drain the silt as it build up , and an overflow to the pond ...
when it fills with silt , open the valve to flush the barrel of silt ...
use a bit of screen on the overflow to hold back the vegetation ....


or build a water duct with a T facing down and off to the side with a small lip downstream of the T ... silt follows the duct at the bottom till it hits the T ... heavier silt drops down the T and out the side, lighter water flows over the lip and into the pond ... an angled screen on the surface should divert the vegetation

just guessing at the setup at this point ...

 

[ovrszd]

Here we use "dry ponds". A simple terrace with some uphill storage capacity with a small perforated pipe to drain the terrace as it fills. Terrace catches debris. Cleaner water goes on to the pond.

This will do nothing about vegetation in your pond. That can only be controlled by chemical treatment at least once a year. Granular Copper Sulphate works pretty good. Either mix the granules with water in a bucket and then sprinkle the pond or put the granules in a gunny sack or any perforated sack and drag it behind a boat to dissolve it into the pond water. Another chemical that works pretty good is Princep 80. There are several more. Go to your nearest farm chemical retailer or feed store. They'll have a recommendation. Understand though that your fish population (if applicable) depend on vegetation to survive. Sterilize the pond and you'll kill the fish.

 

[Fossil Farm]

A settling or sediment basin at the area where the spring water enters the pond, or somewhere above it would help. You can google it and get many designs.
If possible, place it where you can access it with a backhoe to clean it out. What you are looking for is to reduce the energy in the water so it drops out the
sediment before reaching the main pond area. Kinda like a mini-pond before getting to the main pond. The longer the water stays in the settling area, the
more chance there is for it to drop sediment. A big "U" shaped area in cross section before entering the main body of water.

This is used a lot in feedlots, artificial wetlands for animal waste, etc. to drop out as many solids before the waste water gets to the grass filter. Sometimes
they put in switchbacks to get more length in the basin if they have a space for it.

The basin can be cleaned out as needed. Usually, the basin is at least twice as long as wide. Just depends on your terrain and access to spec it properly. I'm sure
you can figure it out pretty easily.

 

[RedNeckRacin]

Getting the water to slow down is the main goal. Some sort of settling basin/detention pond is the best bet. The only other option is to reinforce the entire channel from the source to the pond to eliminate erosion and this won't be effective in high water situations.

 

[GirlWhoWantsTractor]

What you are looking for is to reduce the energy in the water so it drops out the
sediment before reaching the main pond area. Kinda like a mini-pond before getting to the main pond. The longer the water stays in the settling area, the
more chance there is for it to drop sediment. A big "U" shaped area in cross section before entering the main body of water.

Oh boy, we've been neck-deep in just this type of project for a couple years. We have pretty much solved the problem.

First, where is the muddy water coming from? It must be running over bare soil or through dirt culverts (ours was both, including the drainage ditch along the road). Simply plant those areas with annual rye grass; it's a great bank stabilizer; it grows very fast and forms a dense root system that will hold the soil in place, eliminating erosion. Second, like the other posters said, we created several small dammed holding areas, to slow the water down, give it a chance to settle, and keep it from tearing out new paths through the soil. This was as simple as throwing some dirt across the culvert areas (about 3 feet wide and 3 feet high) with a 3" pipe to allow the water to flow out in a controlled manner, and planting those with the grass too. I'm amazed at how well it has worked. So far this year no mud in the ponds.

Annual rye is easy; just throw the seed onto the ground after a rain with hopefully at least 5 days before the next heavy rain. No need to rake it in or anything. Anywhere it touches slightly moist soil it will sprout and grow.

Vegetation in the ponds is likely from too much sun. A healthy pond is a shaded pond; sun is the enemy, especially if your pond is fairly shallow and doesn't have an ice-cold spring source. Plant trees and shrubs around it.

Good luck.

 

[Coyote machine]

Everything in question is on my land. The house/property is for sale, but I still want to save the pond from filling up with silt and vegetation that inevitably grows on top of the silt buildup, where the pond water entry is located.

The plastic barrel is a distinct possibility, since I have several unused. The question that comes up is where to send the silt? It seems there is an endless supply of silt/muck/mud coming at the pond from the back in the woods underground springs. The springs gravity flow toward the pond and pass through two culverts under the driveway and then the flow continues another 100' or so to the pond inlet, over rocks and native streambed.

Thinking out loud: If I were to use a barrel at the outlet end of the culvert closest to the pond, I might be able to send the silt away from the pond and the water to the pond depending on how I plumbed the barrel.
I need help visualizing how it might work to separate the water and silt without plugging up the barrel filtration system....

The barrels have a regular and 'air' bung on top, both threaded.

I will deal with the pond vegetation after I've conquered the silt issue. If I can't stop the silt the pond will eventually be dead, and the vegetation will take over at that point when the water depth has risen to the pond's water level on the surface...

Thanks for the help so far- good ideas.....

 

[dave1949]

GirlWhoWantsATractor's post made a lot sense to me, as usual. I think you need to do some detective work in identifying the source of the silt and limiting that at the source. Maybe putting down a bed of rocks in the flow channel where there are none now would help?

 

[Coyote machine]

The pond has good shade for a large portion of the day with fully mature trees and lower canopy filtration too. The idea of a holding pond before the 2 culverts direct flow toward the pond seems a likely possibility. No question the water has a high flow rate, as it is currently ripping out the streambed deeper and deeper as it flows toward the pond entry.

Please note, I had begun writing post #7 before I had read posts #4-6, so I'm just catching up to activity in this thread.

In the area above my first driveway culvert I believe I can create the 'pre-pond' to slow the flow from the springs to the pond. Since I have a backhoe and a specially made bucket teeth cover to allow for scraping out areas like ditches and such, it should be fairly easy to create the pre-pond and get some grass growing on it's banks to help filter silt.

Curious; on my main homestead next door to small pond of this thread, I have a much bigger pond, also spring fed. Back in the woods a few hundred feet from the big pond is a vertical cylinder of concrete about 3' round with a concrete cap and a run of around 2" black plastic pipe that runs to the pond at stream bed level. Water flow through the pipe and was at one time held above the pond surface by a wood cross brace. The brace allowed the water in the pipe to drop onto the pond and give it aeration. I suppose this was the purpose of the concrete cylinder in the woods?
Maybe this is a similar method to what GWWTractor was referring to? What would it be referred to as... a cistern?

Can I get some pics of any of your existing setups? Thanks.

BTW, GWWTractor, did you get a tractor yet?

I'll take a look for 'settling or sediment basins' on the net. Thanks for that idea, Fossil Farm!

 

[Fossil Farm]

The pond has good shade for a large portion of the day with fully mature trees and lower canopy filtration too. The idea of a holding pond before the 2 culverts direct flow toward the pond seems a likely possibility. No question the water has a high flow rate, as it is currently ripping out the streambed deeper and deeper as it flows toward the pond entry.

Curious; on my main homestead next door to small pond of this thread, I have a much bigger pond, also spring fed. Back in the woods a few hundred feet from the big pond is a vertical cylinder of concrete about 3' round with a concrete cap and a run of around 2" black plastic pipe that runs to the pond at stream bed level. Water flow through the pipe and was at one time held above the pond surface by a wood cross brace. The brace allowed the water in the pipe to drop onto the pond and give it aeration. I suppose this was the purpose of the concrete cylinder in the woods?
Maybe this is a similar method to what GWWTractor was referring to? What would it be referred to as... a cistern?

The concrete structure would be a spring development. Depending on the spring, additional perforated pipe and gravel is added
below the spring to catch the water and direct it to the concrete structure you see. The vertical pipe allows debris and silt to settle
out and the cleaner water then goes out to the black plastic pipe to the pond, house, cattle waterer, etc.

Also, as far as the sediment basin, very fine clays will stay in suspension and not be filtered out. About the only way to get those
out would be to spread powdered lime on the pond surface. The lime and clay are attracted to each other and will settle out.
But of course that means sunlight can penetrate the water depth more, possibly causing more submergent
weed growth. Just depends what is acceptable to you. But if you are looking at selling, just depends how much time and money
you want to spend, I guess. Good luck.