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#1
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Can not find leaks
I have a pond made out of concrete that I "inherited" when I bought my
house. It hold about 1750 gallons , that is, when it will hold water at all. We filled it up and cut our new waterfall on, overnight I lost nearly 1500 gallons of water to somewhere. We have not been running the waterfall at all for the time being, just watching the water level. I did fix some obvious problems with the waterfall plumbing and that will undoubtedly help. Anyway, the avaerage depth of our pond is about 1.5 feet to the original water line and without the falls running I have lost about 5 inches of water in about 4 1/2 days. Roughly an inch a day. There are cracks running in various spots of the bottom of the pond. Should obviously be a problem, so just to check, I performed the "milk in a spray bottle" method to see how bad the leaks were. I went along every major crack on the pond floor/walls squirting milk and none of the craks seemed to suck the milk out at all. Not even the slightest bit. The pond was obviously sealed with "somthing", not sure what. Our front pond is holding water quite well, it seems to be coated with the same stuff, whatever it is. Funny thing is, the rear pond was holding water fine until we drained and cleaned it. I guess we washed away whatever it was that was sealing up possible leaks. Got all the gunk out and the water has started leaking. I have looked at and priced some of the UGL Sealant and am wondering if it would be better to just cough up the dough and try to put a liner in the pond. I figure it would probably be cheaper than buying all the concrete to patch all the holes PLUS buying sealant to coat the whole thing and hope that the cracks dont come back. Thoughts? |
#2
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If the pond is not shifting that would cause the cracks to widen, a slurry
of bentonite put into the pond and kept mixed with an air stone will find the leak and plug it in a few days. Once the leak has stopped, then the pond could be pumped out and fresh water put in to get rid of the muddy water. If the pond is shifting causing the cracks to enlarge, or increase in number, the best solution would be a liner, since virtually all materials will fail as the cracks enlarge. -- RichToyBox http://www.geocities.com/richtoybox/pondintro.html "robv60" wrote in message oups.com... I have a pond made out of concrete that I "inherited" when I bought my house. It hold about 1750 gallons , that is, when it will hold water at all. We filled it up and cut our new waterfall on, overnight I lost nearly 1500 gallons of water to somewhere. We have not been running the waterfall at all for the time being, just watching the water level. I did fix some obvious problems with the waterfall plumbing and that will undoubtedly help. Anyway, the avaerage depth of our pond is about 1.5 feet to the original water line and without the falls running I have lost about 5 inches of water in about 4 1/2 days. Roughly an inch a day. There are cracks running in various spots of the bottom of the pond. Should obviously be a problem, so just to check, I performed the "milk in a spray bottle" method to see how bad the leaks were. I went along every major crack on the pond floor/walls squirting milk and none of the craks seemed to suck the milk out at all. Not even the slightest bit. The pond was obviously sealed with "somthing", not sure what. Our front pond is holding water quite well, it seems to be coated with the same stuff, whatever it is. Funny thing is, the rear pond was holding water fine until we drained and cleaned it. I guess we washed away whatever it was that was sealing up possible leaks. Got all the gunk out and the water has started leaking. I have looked at and priced some of the UGL Sealant and am wondering if it would be better to just cough up the dough and try to put a liner in the pond. I figure it would probably be cheaper than buying all the concrete to patch all the holes PLUS buying sealant to coat the whole thing and hope that the cracks dont come back. Thoughts? |
#3
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Never thought of the Bentonite repair option. Cool.
Jim RichToyBox wrote: If the pond is not shifting that would cause the cracks to widen, a slurry of bentonite put into the pond and kept mixed with an air stone will find the leak and plug it in a few days. Once the leak has stopped, then the pond could be pumped out and fresh water put in to get rid of the muddy water. If the pond is shifting causing the cracks to enlarge, or increase in number, the best solution would be a liner, since virtually all materials will fail as the cracks enlarge. |
#4
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bentonite?
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#5
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"robv60" wrote in message oups.com... bentonite? It is a volcanic clay that swells when it gets wet. It is primarily used by drillers as drilling mud and to seal borings. You can get it at a drilling supply company or a pump supply company. It costs about $6-10/100 lbs bag of the powder. Chips and pellets are more expensive. |
#6
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It's also what the cheap kittly litter is made out of. The low-end
walmart brand is all bentonite... like $5 for a big bag. |
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