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What I find interesting - Re: Tilapia Post - Pond Building
- Thread starter Burton
- Start date
Back in the day my Uncle built two separate ponds and had a flowing well for each one. They worked good.
paulito
Senior Member
one acre pond that is an average of four feet deep is roughly 1.3 million gallons of water. Say you are getting 5 gallons a minute from the well, you are looking at 180 days give or take to completely fill the pond with the well pump running 24/7. Thats just real simple calculations not taking into account rainfall or evaporation or if the pond doesn't 100% hold water either.
ryanh487
Senior Member
He has a full channel dedicated to the project. It took months to fill and is mostly sustained with rainfall. If you look on his channel he has multiple videos covering the full build and filling process, as well as stocking, water chemistry, fertilization, etc.
fishfryer
frying fish driveler
I watched a man run a 3/4 inch pvc pipe to try and fill a fishpond for years. I couldn’t figure it out, either it would or wouldn’t, fill it up with water or dirt!
Mexican Squealer
Senior Member
a lot of your success will depend on your soil make up. I’ve got a one acre pond in the sandy part of Taylor County (Mauk) that runs off a well and has to be pumped up pretty regular. It’s had fish in it and has done fine for 15 years but it does have to be pumped. If sandy soil is an issue, putting some Bentonite (clay for lining ponds) in the bottom can help. I’ve also got 14 ponds in SC that run off wells (7 ponds on each). Ponds average 10-14 acres in size. Three days per pond to get that depth. I generally pump these up to 18-20 inches in late October and they will hold close to that depth till about April. Way more clay composition in those ponds as opposed to the sandy one in Taylor. A bunch of factors come into play and wells can be an expensive pain.
DSGB
Senior Member
His soil was more sandy than he had originally thought (hoped), so they had to bring in truck loads of clay to line the bottom of the pond and dam.
Say what? You have 7 ponds on a single well that average 10-14 acres each?
I don't understand how that works.
I have clay soil here. I'm located in Anderson, SC. I have a pretty good drainage area where the rainfall would definitely help out. If I could build a 2 acre pond and keep it filled, I would. But obviously there is a lot to be considered.
Mexican Squealer
Senior Member
each well is 8” with a pipe feeding off a main line to each pond.
paulito
Senior Member
To clarify on my response, i wasn't trying to discourage your from using a well. There are plenty of our customers that do to supplement their water level in their ponds. I was just trying to point out that you need to do the math and make sure it is feasible or else your power bill will be thru the roof. Like Squealer mentioned, if you have a sandy soil situation where the pond is constantly losing water you may have to run the well A LOT to keep it full or else consider some type of liner.
We just typically see where our pond customers don't really grasp the volumes that are involved when dealing with a pond. Your layperson typically thinks they can lower/drain their small neighborhood pond effectively with a 2 inch trash pump and that simply isn't the case.
We just typically see where our pond customers don't really grasp the volumes that are involved when dealing with a pond. Your layperson typically thinks they can lower/drain their small neighborhood pond effectively with a 2 inch trash pump and that simply isn't the case.
I know, not at all. I get the math. I do math for a living.
So I can pretty easily figure out evaporation vs annual rainfall vs power requirements. But what you don't know is what you don't know.
I'm more curious about....ok....there's a pond down the street. I don't see a creek going to that pond. How are they getting their water?
If this sort of thing works pretty conveniently (using a well to top off a pond during drought) and the cost isn't exponential.....then that may be the route I have to go.
I was attempting to buy land from my neighbor for a water source but it doesn't seem to be working out. That alone was going to be pretty...expensive.
In-law's have a pond in their pasture that is fed by a spring. It does get rain runoff, but the spring will keep it pretty much full unless we are in a major drought.
paulito
Senior Member
That's where having a soil scientist or hydrologist can help (which i'm not). The small pond down the road that doesn't have a stream feeding it could be spring fed or your water table could be shallow and they just dug down to it or it coudl just be purely stormwater runoff fed. you'd be surprised (especially here in Georgia with our clay soils) how easy it is to keep a decent size pond full with just stormwater runoff. In the metro area we actually average 52 inches or so annually. Problem is we don't get it an inch a week throughout the year. We can get 5 inches in a week like we did this week and then not get a decent rain for another 3-4 weeks. In that case you would either need to deal with the pond level fluctuating or supplement with your well intake as mentioned. In my opinion 1.0 acre pond is the sweet spot because you can do a lot with it and "play" with the fishery and other aspects pretty easily and quickly.
My dad's lower pasture in SC he only has to dig down about 2 foot until he hits water. He thought about building a pond but then started factoring in the excavation costs and disposal of the dirt, etc and decided to just keep fishing his neighbors pond. HA
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