We have a stock tank that used to hold water for years and it's been dry for roughly the past 10. Is there a company you can recommend to come out and take a look? Would love to have it hold water again. Central Texas area.
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Stock tank not holding water
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Last: 6 yr ago by txags92
Contact your loal USDA NRCS office. It's a good start.
Do you know if they can help with funding on wildlife tanks? We have one that's not holding but I am not sure our landowner will spend the money to fix it.
We use bentonite. Seems to work well.
where do you buy bentonite? Fixing my dry pond is on my list of things to do this year
Bentonite will work most of the time. You can get it from Texas Sodium Bentonite Inc. located in Comanche Texas. www.texassodiumbentonite.com
Well that works well for me since i'm in Brownwood!
I'm in the process of putting a liner in my 2 acre pond. Probably the most $ route but I've tried reworking it twice without success so I just didn't want to risk bentonite not working.
Bentonite works but it takes a **** ton to seal a decent sized pond if the leak is in more than one area.
For my center pivot sprinkler ponds, I bought a semi load of bentonite,blew it into place and used the teeth on the track hoe bucket to work it in. For small jobs, I have gone to the mud company and just got a pallet of bagged bentonite. The liners do not work for me as the wildlife wrecks it in the winter when the ponds are empty...just a consideration if your 'tank' (I love that terminology) is not year around.Tx-Ag2010 said:
Bentonite works but it takes a **** ton to seal a decent sized pond if the leak is in more than one area.
Yes, it does take some product but the last time I worked on my ponds was probably 10 years ago.
You must have been lucky or have a different definition of a smaller job. Me and my brothers spent an afternoon dumping 2-3000# of bagged bentonite into our parents 1+ acre pond. It didn't do much to slow the loss of water. Some after the fact research (I wasn't the one who decided how much bentonite it took) leads me to believe it would have taken ~10x the amount we put in to have a chance of sealing.wyoag77 said:For my center pivot sprinkler ponds, I bought a semi load of bentonite,blew it into place and used the teeth on the track hoe bucket to work it in. For small jobs, I have gone to the mud company and just got a pallet of bagged bentonite. The liners do not work for me as the wildlife wrecks it in the winter when the ponds are empty...just a consideration if your 'tank' (I love that terminology) is not year around.Tx-Ag2010 said:
Bentonite works but it takes a **** ton to seal a decent sized pond if the leak is in more than one area.
Yes, it does take some product but the last time I worked on my ponds was probably 10 years ago.
Well yes, 3000 lb is a small job, especially for a 1 acre pond - that is only 30 sacks (assuming the 100 lb sack - can get various size sacks). I use the sacks for sealing ditches mostly. I would notionally agree w your 10x comment. I probably used 20k lb (hard to get an exact mass from the pneumatic trailer) in a 0.25 acre pond and the rest of the truck (call it 30k lb) in a slightly larger pond, but no where close to an acre. I would agree that you probably under-treated your acre pond.Tx-Ag2010 said:You must have been lucky or have a different definition of a smaller job. Me and my brothers spent an afternoon dumping 2-3000# of bagged bentonite into our parents 1+ acre pond. It didn't do much to slow the loss of water. Some after the fact research (I wasn't the one who decided how much bentonite it took) leads me to believe it would have taken ~10x the amount we put in to have a chance of sealing.wyoag77 said:For my center pivot sprinkler ponds, I bought a semi load of bentonite,blew it into place and used the teeth on the track hoe bucket to work it in. For small jobs, I have gone to the mud company and just got a pallet of bagged bentonite. The liners do not work for me as the wildlife wrecks it in the winter when the ponds are empty...just a consideration if your 'tank' (I love that terminology) is not year around.Tx-Ag2010 said:
Bentonite works but it takes a **** ton to seal a decent sized pond if the leak is in more than one area.
Yes, it does take some product but the last time I worked on my ponds was probably 10 years ago.
Great info... really glad we didn't try to finish treating the pond with 50# bags.wyoag77 said:Well yes, 3000 lb is a small job, especially for a 1 acre pond - that is only 30 sacks (assuming the 100 lb sack - can get various size sacks). I use the sacks for sealing ditches mostly. I would notionally agree w your 10x comment. I probably used 20k lb (hard to get an exact mass from the pneumatic trailer) in a 0.25 acre pond and the rest of the truck (call it 30k lb) in a slightly larger pond, but no where close to an acre. I would agree that you probably under-treated your acre pond.Tx-Ag2010 said:You must have been lucky or have a different definition of a smaller job. Me and my brothers spent an afternoon dumping 2-3000# of bagged bentonite into our parents 1+ acre pond. It didn't do much to slow the loss of water. Some after the fact research (I wasn't the one who decided how much bentonite it took) leads me to believe it would have taken ~10x the amount we put in to have a chance of sealing.wyoag77 said:For my center pivot sprinkler ponds, I bought a semi load of bentonite,blew it into place and used the teeth on the track hoe bucket to work it in. For small jobs, I have gone to the mud company and just got a pallet of bagged bentonite. The liners do not work for me as the wildlife wrecks it in the winter when the ponds are empty...just a consideration if your 'tank' (I love that terminology) is not year around.Tx-Ag2010 said:
Bentonite works but it takes a **** ton to seal a decent sized pond if the leak is in more than one area.
Yes, it does take some product but the last time I worked on my ponds was probably 10 years ago.
https://www.amazon.com/Indian-Healing-Bentonite-Detox-Clay/dp/B01GSF2OK4
In case you were looking for lighter bags
In case you were looking for lighter bags
The secret is you have to cut it into your existing soils. You need a PI north of 40.
When we filled our pond for the first time, the water level came on up until we had about 7 feet of head. Then it started leaking. We got a pallet of bentonite, spread it as best we could and then ran a small disc over it to get it into the existing bottom. One treatment and it worked. I can't imagine why bentonite wouldn't work if applied correctly unless the bottom of the pond has rocks that prevent mixing of the soil and bentonite.
What was interesting about ours is that the guy that excavated the pond for us grabbed a handful of the clay bottom, squeezed it and told me it was the best clay he had ever seen and he guaranteed it would hold water without any additional treatment required
. The reality is that mother nature is a ***** and you just never know what's going to happen when you start messing with her.
What was interesting about ours is that the guy that excavated the pond for us grabbed a handful of the clay bottom, squeezed it and told me it was the best clay he had ever seen and he guaranteed it would hold water without any additional treatment required
. The reality is that mother nature is a ***** and you just never know what's going to happen when you start messing with her.
I have learned not to put too much trust in the dirt contractors. While they may be very good at moving dirt, there is a lot more to building a successful pond. Central Texas (certainly at my ranch) does not always have the best soil for building a good pond. There is just not always an abundance of good clay for the job. A good source and forum is pondboss.com. I decided to go with the liner because I didn't want to run the risk of a third failed attempt with a dirt contractor and I decided that it would be my plan to seal it this go round. A good contact that can be found on the pondboss forum is Mike Otto. He has at least one book out on pond construction. This book and consulting with Mike is mostly how I decided to go with the liner.
It's really not Mother Nature; it's physics.Rufnek said:
The reality is that mother nature is a ***** and you just never know what's going to happen when you start messing with her.
Bentonite is usually recommended for sealing ponds because it's a great material for such an application. But it's not magic. First of all, you must use Sodium Bentonite. The characteristic that makes sodium bentonite work is that it chemically bonds to water molecules, which strengthen the soil matrix and seal it off to water infiltration. Bentonite will bind with LOTS of water, swelling to over 15 times its volume when hydrated. It holds onto that water and is reluctant to let it go to accept new water.
If you really want to figure out the right way to amend your soil, take a sample to a soil testing lab. They'll test for several soil parameters, including the permeability, or hydraulic conductivity. That's what you're most concerned about as it is a function of how water moves through the soil matrix. The lab will be able to tell you how much bentonite you'll need to add to obtain a suitable permeability for retaining water. Environmental liners usually must meet a maximum permeability of 1 x 10^-7 cm/sec.
My recommendation for amending the soil is to add the requisite amount of bentonite distributed evenly across the floor of your pond. Till it in with a disc plow or a rototiller to a depth of at least six inches. Hydrate it. Then compact it. Then TEST IT. Then fill your pond.
There's a number of different ways to test the in-place permeability of your soil. The easiest is to dig a small hole, fill it up with water, and watch what happens to the water.
ETA:
The soil at your site might not be suitable for amendment. Alternatives to amending the soil would include importing a suitable clay and installing geomembrane.
Also, if your pond held water for years and now doesn't, there's several things to consider. What is the drainage area that contributes to your pond? Have there been changes to that drainage area? Are you supplementing with other water? How deep is it to groundwater? It's also possible that allowing the pond to dry has just allowed the existing clay to shrink. If there's enough clay in the soil, just rehydrate it, recompact it, and then test it. It might be suitable.
Sometimes it's not a matter of a lack of clay, it's a matter of excessive lime with the clay. Good 'ol rock salt can help solve that. No, it won't salt out the pond.
I was just about to mention using salt. It can help keep the bentonite sealed in ponds that periodically dry out.B-1 83 said:
Sometimes it's not a matter of a lack of clay, it's a matter of excessive lime with the clay. Good 'ol rock salt can help solve that. No, it won't salt out the pond.
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