Pond cleaning

[b116757]

We have had such a dry couple years I have several ponds very nearly completely dry and one that is totally dry at this point. I’ve started cleaning out what I can without blowing a hole in the dams particularly if they have fish. Some of ponds that do not have fish I may go ahead and knock a drain in the dam and really be able to clean those out well. That one pond as the water dried up there was a ridge running across the bottom cutting it at about 1/4 to 1/3. I don’t know why that was there seemed pretty odd to me so cleaned out as much of it as I could until the water finally started flooding me out last thing I did was push into the other water hole to connect them at least all my fish trapped in the smaller pool can get into the main body of the pond now. Darn gray herons are putting the hurt on my fish as it dries up.

 

[Hoytvectrix]

By cleaning out, are you referring to silt or muck on the bottom? If so, I'm curious how you know how deep to go without fearing punching a hole in the bottom?

I'm asking because we have an old cattle pond that is about 0.6 acres that is now only a couple feet or so and is mostly full of silt or muck. I'm wondering about renting a backhoe to clean some of it out but I am not sure about depth.

 

[drycreek]

On the ponds that have no fish, rent a pump and pump it dry. You can dig a sump hole to get the very last of it, then you can clean it out as deep as the clay goes or until you get as deep as you want.

As far as how deep to dig, you can dig a test hole to see how deep it is to materiel that won’t hold water. When you hit sand, stop, fill that hole back in and pack it down. You can easily do that with a backhoe and dig a few test holes. The best machine to clean out a pond is a dozer. You only have to handle the dirt once, push it out over the top of the dam and make your backslope flatter. If it’s soft, use an LGP dozer, they have wide tracks for flotation in soft ground. Moving dirt twice is a money loser for the guy paying. I have done all kinds of dirt work for a living all of my life and have clean out several ponds in my career.

 

[T-Max]

By cleaning out, are you referring to silt or muck on the bottom? If so, I'm curious how you know how deep to go without fearing punching a hole in the bottom?

I'm asking because we have an old cattle pond that is about 0.6 acres that is now only a couple feet or so and is mostly full of silt or muck. I'm wondering about renting a backhoe to clean some of it out but I am not sure about depth.

I’ve never personally done it, but when we had ours cleaned out it was quite clear the color difference in the clay and the muck they were removing. I think usually there is enough clay that you can scrape it a bit without fear of it leaking.


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[SwampCat]

We have had such a dry couple years I have several ponds very nearly completely dry and one that is totally dry at this point. I’ve started cleaning out what I can without blowing a hole in the dams particularly if they have fish. Some of ponds that do not have fish I may go ahead and knock a drain in the dam and really be able to clean those out well. That one pond as the water dried up there was a ridge running across the bottom cutting it at about 1/4 to 1/3. I don’t know why that was there seemed pretty odd to me so cleaned out as much of it as I could until the water finally started flooding me out last thing I did was push into the other water hole to connect them at least all my fish trapped in the smaller pool can get into the main body of the pond now. Darn gray herons are putting the hurt on my fish as it dries up.

I left a ridge in my pond for fish structure

 

[Catscratch]

I left a ridge in my pond for fish structure

A guy could go all out on fish structure in a situation like this! Ridges, boulders, culverts, trees tied to the bottom...

 

[b116757]

Pump is a good idea instead of opening a hole in the dam. Thanks for the tip.

 

[Telemark]

Is the muck and silt any good for food plots and orchards? Would it contribute significantly to soil nutrients?

 

[b116757]

It’s probably high in nutrients but unless you can spread it out thin and probably disc it some it doesn’t grow much of anything for several years if piled deep. I’m filling in a low spot near that one dam that in normal precipitation years holds water, on most I’ll dump it on the backside of the dam and just widen the dam with it. Some will get spread out, a couple years ago I repaired a couple dams and would just dig a deep trench just outside the water line to fill in and build up dam then at the very end push to the water and let my deep trench that I created fill with water.

 

[bjseiler]

I would definitely be putting in structures if you have a bass/bluegill ecosystem. Way easier to deal with that now with good equipment than trying to sink stuff later.

 

[b116757]

Structure would be something interesting to fool with if I had time we will likely start seeing more rain here soon we already had one storm that dumped 3” and put water in some of the ponds that had been very nearly completely dry

 

[b116757]

Well finished one pond clean out moved the crawler over to the next one. I’ll start cleaning on it tomorrow noticed the spillway on that one was pretty well eroded most likely a contributing factor to it being completely dry. On this one I may try and dig it a bit deeper than it was originally will see what the soil is like after I get the muck removed.

 

[buckdeer1]

I bet they used a backhoe and couldn't reach all the way and thats the ridge

 

[b116757]

One of my coworkers just received a bid to clean out a 1/2 acre pond of $8000 wow higher than I would have guessed!

 

[T-Max]

Way higher than we paid in 2018, but what’s new in this day and age. I wouldn’t even know what to expect today, but that does seem high.


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[Telemark]

unless you can spread it out thin and probably disc it some it doesn’t grow much of anything for several years if piled deep

That's really strange. Is it because it lacks a seed bank, or is there something that makes it unsuitable to growing plants?

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

I had a small watering hole dug in a muck filled area. The much was filled with organic matter and quite smelly, but it really improved the sandy field that I spread it on. When you mix muck with sand, you end up with some pretty decent soil.

I dug a different watering hole in a ravine that has a trickle of water flowing in it any time there is a heavy rain. This watering hole ended up slowly filling in with sand, which is totally worthless.

 

[b116757]

That's really strange. Is it because it lacks a seed bank, or is there something that makes it unsuitable to growing plants?

Idk it’s some different stuff looks grey to black with a consistency of stiff jello. Just sort of slides out of the crawler bucket I suspect it’s very low in oxygen and when just piled up takes a good amount of time to get to where most plants can even grow in the stuff it’s definitely not just soil that waterlogged. It likely would be a good soil amendment if spread thin and worked into the soil.

 

[buckdeer1]

We call it dead soil,i would imagine if you could spread out and spread manure on it.It would help.But it seems you can't even work with it until it dries for a month.Cost probably depends on if they have to pump or use a scraper or just backhoe from shore

 

[b116757]

They told him they would be running two machines for three days to clean it out. Idk what they are using. I know on the one I’m currently cleaning out it has pretty close to 4’ of muck at the bottom. We need rain bad but now that I’m in the middle of this little project it wouldn’t hurt my feelings to much if it held off a bit yet.