# Dig your own Pond/lake?



## th_Wolverine

Anyone done it? I'm looking at building one to swim around in and probably stock with catfish to supplement my family diet. I imagine there's more to it than taking a backhoe to the back 40 and expecting rain fill it up......

And Catfish seem easy to get an ecosystem going for, what would it take to get bass or trout?


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## Yldrosie

I'd like info on this to, so I'll bump it up.


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## th_Wolverine

I know right!? I can't find hardly ANY info on it. Basically all I've been able to gather is that clay is the best water retainer which makes it suck for basements but rock for ponds and lakes. But the thing I want is to be able to have a nice sandy area by the house without all the muck and yuck that comes from very stagnant ponds. Could I dig a well specifially geared to pump water in it?


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## fishhead

I've built commercial fish ponds but you are probably interested in deeper ponds. It takes a lot of earth moving $$$$ to excavate a pond than it does to build a levee type or especially a reservoir pond. The latter is built by putting a dam across a ravine or valley to hold back rainwater or spring water. If you have the topography and soil type that will give you the largest deepest pond for the dollar.

You can always put down a barrier and cover it with sand to have a swimming place.

Unless you have access to cold springwater you're probably going to have to go with bass/bluegill or something similar.

Google SRAC and there should be some free pond construction information.


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## jwal10

Do you have a hill, ravine and waterway? Wet, swampy or spring on a hillside? Lots of places to build a pond. Different topography calls for different type impoundments. I have built a few. Need to dig down and see if you have soil that will seal off to hold water. I built a big pond that had a shallow end and we hauled in 100 yards of beach sand for a beach....James


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## theemon

well. id like to know too,

see I have a few natural springs, and just messing around I dug a hole, maybe 5x5x 3ft deep hell a few hours later it was full. and has stayed full since... im thinking as a side project to dig this out big enough to stock fish. I figured id dig down to the clay, then add more clay to the one side that's the lowest


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## PorkChopsMmm

We have had some bad flooding here in MI. We live near a creek and all of our ground is relatively flat and sandy although there are some high/low spots. As such, we have water flooding most of our open meadow -- which is very annoying. I plan to rent a tractor/backhoe/loader early next winter when the ground is frozen but we don't have crazy amounts of snow. I am going to dig a big pond and raise up the level of the meadow with the fill and try to cut some drainage areas for when/if the creek floods again.

We have sandy soil and I know that won't retain water well but we also have a high water table -- so maybe the water will just stay in there. Who knows -- I've got to do something about the flooding though and the pond will be a good side benefit to leveling our meadow.


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## th_Wolverine

I haven't bought my land yet, I'm waiting to get finished with school and pay of those debts in a year and a half, but the area I plan to live in is in Middle Tennessee, where it is almost ALWAYS red clay within the first 4 feet of topsoil. The thing I'd hate is digging a little lake, then do it wrong and have nothing but a mud pit with cattails. hjahaha


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## dkhern

check with soil conservation they will come out and evulate your site and offer advice.
talk to dozer operators most have built ponds in your area. talk to neighbors w/ponds who built there? for fish you have to have enough surface for wind to areate if not you need to areate. your temps are probally to warm for trout but soil conservation can advie. dnr could be a source also.


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## stanb999

Check out the PondBoss forum. More info than you could wish to absorb.


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## CesumPec

check out the extreme composting thread and you'll see somewhere on page 70 - 80 a few pix of Forerunners version of Hoover Dam.


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## dirtman

PorkChopsMmm said:


> We have had some bad flooding here in MI. We live near a creek and all of our ground is relatively flat and sandy although there are some high/low spots. As such, we have water flooding most of our open meadow -- which is very annoying. I plan to rent a tractor/backhoe/loader early next winter when the ground is frozen but we don't have crazy amounts of snow. I am going to dig a big pond and raise up the level of the meadow with the fill and try to cut some drainage areas for when/if the creek floods again.
> 
> We have sandy soil and I know that won't retain water well but we also have a high water table -- so maybe the water will just stay in there. Who knows -- I've got to do something about the flooding though and the pond will be a good side benefit to leveling our meadow.


Michigan gets real nasty if you try and put in a pond without jumping through all the hoops. If you are within 500 feet of a stream then you will need a soil erosion permit for starters and someone will come out to your place to check it out. You usually can't sneak one in but because most counties like mine, do an fly over once a year shooting pictures which they overlay from the previous year to see if anyone has built anything without permits. Not that many years ago they used to pay you to put a pond on your property.


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## PorkChopsMmm

I can do 500 feet away. My local excavator does ponds (but charges up the wazoo) and he said you don't need a permit unless your pond will be bigger than 10 acres or something ridiculous.


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## joebill

I had one when I moved here. plowed out the dam, because the skeeters loved the pond more than I did. No pond, no skeeters, since it is desert here. It also was a risk because kids love ponds, too, but desert kids often don't learn how to swim. 

Side story, one young kid whose dad had left the family found out that the pond was mine and indicated that if I was not married, he'd sure like to have a step-daddy with a pond, and his mom needed a new husband. Said it like it was the most logical thing in the world, and anybody who could not connect the dots was retarded.....Joe


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## primal1

I saw an amazing video on a permaculture forest where the guy wanted a reservoir at the highest point that would leach down throughout the forest to create a perfect watering system.. anyhow, to build his reservoir, he scraped off the topsoil and set it aside in order to top dress the new banks after.
Second was to dig down but stopping BEFORE disturbing the layer of clay which would retain the water. Some clay was taken to build up on the side walls, also to help retain water.
The banks were finished with the top soil and planted with specific plants that develop good water bank roots.. not a cheap endevour unless you can find a cheap backhoe.


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## Forerunner

I hadn't seen this thread.......

Pages 63 and 64 on the Extreme Composting thread have pics of my latest project, and I wholly agree with the advice to talk to local earthmovers about the logistics and possibilities in your given area of the country.

Around here, clay is king and holding water is easy enough. 
A sand beach is as simple as a gentle grade at one point in the pond, and, as has been mentioned, a few truckloads of sand.

Any earthmoving project is costly, and the big ones are crazy costly.

I spent over a year, on and off, pushing up the big dam I finished last year, using several different machines and trading up a few dozer sizes in the midst of it.

Then I hired my brother and his Cat D6R for three full days to help me close the final gap in the dam and dig my already huge hole the rest of the way to China, in the process.
All of the dirt for this last project came from in the hole, as I didn't want to disturb the surrounding topography.

Those three days with Brother running with me cost $5500.

I'd hate to figure up time, diesel fuel and maintenance on what I put in, myself, ahead of the finish.


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## Raymond James

In Missouri there is planning help from the extension service. With last years drought some cost shares on ponds/wells to water cattle/live stock. 

Talk with local dozer operators/excavation companies/ guys that do septic systems. Ask them to come look and give an estimate. They can tell you if the can put one in on your land and how much it will cost. I have never put one in but did have old ponds dug out during a draught.


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## MDKatie

dkhern said:


> check with soil conservation they will come out and evulate your site and offer advice.


I second that. Soil Conservation works sort of like Extension, they'll come out for free and help you find the best possible place for a pond, and can do soil borings to tell you if you've got what's needed to hold water. They can also get you a nice soils map so you know what you have.


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## seven7seven

Study up on surface drainage. It takes anywhere from 5 to 20 acres to feed 1 acre of water surface in your pond. Google " tennessee watershed for ponds". You need 8' deep to keep it from getting nasty, a spill way to protect from catastrophic failures during serious rain events. I just built a 20 million gallon pond about 10' deep. The design team was very concerned with water perk and wanted to line or till bentonite into to soil to make it less previous but we decided we had nothing to lose just to dig it and see if it held water. So this is what we did and it worked well. Though it has 45 acres of storm drainage filling the pond we hit multiple types of soil mostly clay but some sandy crap. We also had a 6" well drilled 345' deep to run non-stop to get it full until the rain could take over- we had a dog and pony show on the calander and couldnt wait for mother nature.


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## seven7seven

There really is a lot of info out there.


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## Raymond James

I know people who did not have the money hire/rent equipment. They plowed with there horses, then used a scoop/ scrapper to remove soil. Than plowed , scrapped to remove / Over and over again till they thought they had it deep enough. Waited till spring for he snow to melt and the rains to come in order to fill it. 

Dig in mid summer to early fall.


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## texican

I built three. First one was done with just a large tractor (90hp) with dual rear tires and large front end loader... took several full days of digging, and it turned out ok, but was small, about 1/4 acre. Was ten feet deep, but dried almost completely out in the worst drought in 45 years. So, I built another, this time with a dozer, about a weeks worth of dozer time, and it covered an acre. About 20' deep, but got worried in the next drought. So, I built the third one, which literally swallowed the other two, creating an ~8 acre pond/lake, 34' deep. Took a months worth of digging and pushing. trackhoes and dozers. Only did about a quarter of the digging. 

Took two years to completely fill up... my drainage area isn't as great as I'd like it, but, it will hold water, I figure for at least 7 years if it never rained again. By 'then', the entire country would have died back if it didn't rain in that length of time.

You can rent dozers or trackhoes by the day (not economical), week (better rates), or the month (gives you lots of options in case you have some other emergency come up, or weather delays). If you do the operating yourself, you end up saving a fortune. I knew literally nothing about trackhoes before sitting in one. I did ask the operator to move his truck before starting the engine... like he said, it's my place, and only thing I could mess up would be 'my place'... I did end up blowing two tires on my trailer, loading logs with the hoe... not knowing how much power it had. (don't try to scoot a log over on the trailer floor).

The larger the drainage area, the quicker it will refill. If it has a year round or 'navigable' creek, you'll run into issues with your state and federal regulations. Sandy soil, forget it. Clay? your in heaven.


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## CesumPec

Last month I tried to rent a dozer for a week, a D5 was going to be $6K with a root rake. A loader, can't remember the Cat number but it is comparable to a JD 644, with root rake, was $2400/week. I had to have insurance with the Cat dealer as a named insured for $1M. That was the deal killer because it was going to add another $1500.


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## HuskyBoris

dirtman said:


> Michigan gets real nasty if you try and put in a pond without jumping through all the hoops. If you are within 500 feet of a stream then you will need a soil erosion permit for starters and someone will come out to your place to check it out. You usually can't sneak one in but because most counties like mine, do an fly over once a year shooting pictures which they overlay from the previous year to see if anyone has built anything without permits. Not that many years ago they used to pay you to put a pond on your property.


I have also been wanting to put a pond in but the drainage ditch is on the map as a creek,man made but they gave it a name??,whatever,then said creek emptys into my property creating marshland which connects to the Manistee National Forest (about 6,000 acres of it) and also has a Beaver pond at the other end of it,,DEQ has pretty much made it clear that it's hands off area even though the local pig farm seems to whatever they want,filling here and there,digging ditches etc etc,guess my pockets just aren't deep enough to make it happen but oh well,it's still a nice little refuge for wildlife,,I wonder if I could put one in for geese and ducks for a refuge kinda thing?


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## texican

primal1 said:


> I saw an amazing video on a permaculture forest where the guy wanted a reservoir at the highest point that would leach down throughout the forest to create a perfect watering system.. anyhow, to build his reservoir, he scraped off the topsoil and set it aside in order to top dress the new banks after.
> Second was to dig down but stopping BEFORE disturbing the layer of clay which would retain the water. Some clay was taken to build up on the side walls, also to help retain water.
> The banks were finished with the top soil and planted with specific plants that develop good water bank roots.. not a cheap endevour unless you can find a cheap backhoe.


The year after my 8 acre reservoir filled up, all of the large trees below the dam for 200' died. Way too much moisture. If you're creating a forest, I'd recommend swamp hardy trees. I've got cypress planted there now, and it's thriving...


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## primal1

texican, there is a science to doing it right, not saying you didn't but Geoff Lawton is the guy i was talking about. This isn't the reservoir he did in Texas but it's a good short video anyway. He is definitely worth knowing about.. enjoy!


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja5XFy5G728[/ame]


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## primal1

This is the actual DVD I may have a copy of http://www.permies.com/t/21129/videos/Harvesting-Water-Permaculture-Geoff-Lawton.

In searching I found that the reservoir he did in Texas became a legal issue and the land owner was ordered to remove it.. not sure of the details but apparently where it was done has very strict laws on water reservoirs.


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## texican

In Texas, you cannot dam a free flowing stream, navigable waterway, or build over 200 acre feet, without Corps of Engineer approval. Doesn't take much to get over 200 acre feet.... 10 acres, 20' deep BAM, your covered. Float a tube down it, your covered.

Without expensive geological surveys (coring) prior to building, your pretty much stuck using surface conditions and extrapolating downwards what your going to hit. My site was predominantly red/gray clay (perfect for holding water), but hit several 2" iron ore stratas, (which caused lots of leakage for three years... finally the pond side of the lake silted up the beds), then a bed of coal... and stopped 15' below ground level, when we hit a bed of 'sugar sand'... which would've drained the pond quickly... covered it with several feet of clay before letting it fill up with water. Below the dam, there's a wide flat area, but ~100' or so below, two hillsides converge with a narrow outlet. Assume the geology restricts natural underground seepage and forces it upwards close to the surface.


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## tentance

in my area the sand will not hold water, but it is possible to dig down deep enough to hit the water table (sometimes as little as 5 feet, usually 10-20).
for really small ponds, there's conventional pond liner. it's expensive. some people have been having success with that waterproof roofing liner, it's very similar to pond liner. then others are using something called bentonite to seal their walls. i haven't actually seen bentonite here though. my pond shop guy says you can't buy it in bulk here large enough to build a goodly sized pond.


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## primal1

I looked into the details and it turns out the Texas reservoir that Geoff Lawton built was not the one that the law shutdown. In fact you are right, the one that got shut down was being fed by an existing tributary.. somewhere in Oregon.

In one of his videos he talks about what happens when you dig and find a spot without clay, basically said it's happened before where they had to truck in clay. Scary business not knowing exactly what you will find! 

I looked into Bentonite and it's a pretty expensive prospect.



texican said:


> In Texas, you cannot dam a free flowing stream, navigable waterway, or build over 200 acre feet, without Corps of Engineer approval. Doesn't take much to get over 200 acre feet.... 10 acres, 20' deep BAM, your covered. Float a tube down it, your covered.
> 
> Without expensive geological surveys (coring) prior to building, your pretty much stuck using surface conditions and extrapolating downwards what your going to hit. My site was predominantly red/gray clay (perfect for holding water), but hit several 2" iron ore stratas, (which caused lots of leakage for three years... finally the pond side of the lake silted up the beds), then a bed of coal... and stopped 15' below ground level, when we hit a bed of 'sugar sand'... which would've drained the pond quickly... covered it with several feet of clay before letting it fill up with water. Below the dam, there's a wide flat area, but ~100' or so below, two hillsides converge with a narrow outlet. Assume the geology restricts natural underground seepage and forces it upwards close to the surface.


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## texican

Layering bentonite would have cost more than the construction of the dam... basically a non starter... so I avoided going deeper, and forgot about trying to line the rock beds.


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## Allen15

I've heard that in the Pacific NW region, the water rights laws are something scary - recently read an article about someone who got in trouble for collecting rainwater out there...


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