I added water yesterday up to a mark. When I noticed it this morning, the level was a good couple of inches lower. Am afraid there is a hole - most probably from a growing root from the trees close by. May be it is pushing through the liner? If so, how to find it out and what to do next? Help please!
A hole in my pond liner?
All you can do is leave it to find what depth the water level meets the puncture, cross a few fingers or two it is not moles or voles seeking water when they go tunneling about... When you find a leak, it's usually faily easy to patch with a suitable tape, the sort of stuff used to join liners
Regards, andy
http://community.webshots.com/user/adavisus
Thanks Andy. I too thought of this waiting method after I posted this 'worry'. The danger is from one side of the pond where the trees are. I had cut a few roots, though not very big at the time of digging for it. I had also burnt leaves to damage the tips of the roots and prevent its growth on the advise of a friend. Again last two days, the level got down an inch. May be evaporation too is adding up, am not sure, as summer is about to begin and we are feeling the sun of late.
Dinu
I have made a 'step' to keep the pots. I noticed this morning that on pressing with the fingers, the earth beneath that was soft. Now this increases my worry.
Dinu--It is also possible that you are losing water from your waterfall (if you have one). Check to be sure that some of the water is not being diverted off to the side of the pond.
Dinu, the waterfall is a good suggestion and evaporation. I thought there might be a leak in my liner recently. I marked the level and watch a few days. I decided there was water splashing out of the waterfall and with a few days in the high 70s with low humidity. One thing we did which has been helpful is a narrow trench coming out that is below the level of the pond. Any time water is getiing under the liner it flows out at that point as an early warning.
I try to give an idea of the shape and size of the pond - it's a small one.
adavisus, enjoyed your webshots!
Have you considered drainage from the surrounding area going beneath the liner or overflow is a good idea to consider? You could be overflowing and if it has no where to drain away it goes under the liner. Once it gets wet under there it takes a long time to dry up if you have clay soil. Or you could have a leak.
I have raised the brim of the pond and then filled up soil around it above the liner. Earlier, at the folds of the liner used to take out water through surface tension at the fold - this I noticed when it used to get wet outside when the pond was full, but not when the level was lower than that of the soil outside. Now, this is not a problem since I maintain a lower level. Yesterday I removed some silt from the bottom as the water had become black and the fish were dying and some were gaping on the surface. I partially changed the water. Now, this fresh addition of water did not bring down the level in my pond that speedily as I reported at the top of the thread. Since the old water remained warm inside and on heating up in the sun, evaporation rate might have been high. This is my observation in the past couple of days. How good and sensible is my observation. Still, the hole might be there, but now I can't be sure.
Indeed, there exists a hole, a small one. This morning I noticed it at the side portion of the pond. I had done as adavisus has suggested above and kept monitoring the level it went down quickly and slowed down at that point. I still wonder how this has happened, as it seems to have a slit in the tough liner. Now I have to remove it on that portion and do some repair from behind. I think of putting rubberised adhesive and a piece of plastic. Is that good enough? I also plan to add sloping surface instead of the shelf-like thing. II have collected a few rocks from the roadside that may be useful for covering the perimeter.
Punctures can be tricky to narrow down, usually they leak 'predictably' sometimes they clog with a bit of debris, and you are left wondering, what leaked
Punctures are a pain, I get hit by small tunneling rodents here, some sort of mole or vole...
Through Winter when all is frozen they peck at the liners to get water... I would'nt trust any patching material which I was not absolutely sure to work with the liner as you could melt a hole, or struggle to get a reliable bond and make the situation worse, using any old solvent based glue
Best stuff I found was proper specification seaming tape, (I found a roll at Lowes) the stuff made to join liners... It's a good idea to buy a 10' roll, 4" wide, ready for emergencies, I cut it into little patches for doing small holes. the stuff looks quite reliable on any kind of liner in difficult ground
Besides small rodents, liner ponds could be gouged by branches blown from trees in storms, or clumsy goats, dogs or deer trampling in the pond, so a roll of 10' of it covers most hoof sizes and unexpected disasters
Another technique I found useful for locating intsy wintsy leaks, is to pour a very cloudy solution of clay behind the liner areas where there are suspected leaks, the clay solution puffs 'wisps' of clay into the pond water... useful for locating punctures where they are still below the water level...
Regards, andy
No such problem of hoofs or things like that damaging the liner. But in the meantime, I emptied the pond, took off the liner and inspected it. Indeed there was a hole, another hole, and another .......!! But the culprit was the one that was seemed to have been done in by some sharp object. I used a piece of the same liner and stuck it on both sides with a rubber adhesive. The other pin-holes {noticed it when I held it against light} were patched up using electrical insulation tape on the outside - these holes are out of the danger area. There were nearly 20 of these. I had put in newspapers for cushioning and these were completely eaten away by the termites from behind and they had even made holes like those when they were at that job!
Now I have dug up the shape again, and increased the volume of water that it can hold, by removing the shelf I had kept for pots. I used sloping sides on both sides. I used old plastic covers that accumulates in homes from shopping, for cushioning [just a bit, this time] as newspapers are out of question. I used finely filtered soil for cushioning the bottom. I have made the sides using this like cement plaster. It should work fine. I also arranged plenty of rocks around it. Found them by the roadside.
More later.
Dinu