Help with pond losing water

[Mmathis]

Hope it turns out to be a simple fix!

@morewater A "hippo"! That's funny!

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Hope it turns out to be a simple fix!

@morewater A "hippo"! That's funny!

They are actually called "whales".

 

[Usman]

i wud have come to help if i was near . check the border of stream by lifting rocks if they r small , u may find water touching soil somewhere , some times capillary action too or pipes from skimmer to stream , or around skimmer if u move stuff u would find drops of water or very wet soaking .

once i had leak similer to this and it was not actualy in main pond rather it was in a bog that was higher and one border was not properly in possition water was touching the soil and with the pressure flow of pump i was lossing alot water , when i shut the pump there was no loss . once it was pipe dripping .

if your pump is sucking alot of air then it can overheat so b carefull u can fill pond again if its loosing or shut down waterfall ?

 

[Usman]

Welcome to our group! Sounds like you have gotten great advice.

Every time I have a leak, some times catastrophic leak (one time over 18 inches of water gone............poof!) it has been a exit of one of my loop ponds, a plant blocked exit or the stock tank exit, recently my protection screen got knocked off by a critter and lily leaves blocked the exit, one of the water falls or the long stream. Every time it has been plants or sometimes a deer walking moving a stone. But usually a plant that decided to grow well and changed the water path.

Every spring I have to walk the stream and fix deer damage, not liner damage, but the stomp on the edge and move stones. They eat the plants over winter on the steep stream slope.

It has never been the liner.

oh thats terrible, is there any fencing for deer?

 

[addy1]

oh thats terrible, is there any fencing for deer?

We are on 4 acres, with some woods, no easy way to fence deer out. It is just part of my maintenance I do in the spring. I actually enjoy watching them walk around, love seeing the babies dance in the back field.

They love the apples that fall.

I do net our green arboretums. , if we have a lot of snow fall, the deer strip them. I just wrap deer fencing around them so they can't eat them up like the did one year.

 

[sissy]

I remember your post addy the year you were away about your pines they looked well like you know what .The deer around here strip every leaf on my trees that are close to the ground .All my weeping trees were stripped of there lower leaves .I keep the feeders out in the woods and the water things full and fresh and put down bales of straw fr a bed for the deer .The woods is all pine trees so not many leaves for bedding down .I just love watching the baby deer also .They are so funny .

 

[morewater]

They are actually called "whales".
View attachment 95814

Whales don't fit in smaller ponds, so they're Hippos. In really, really dinky ponds they're call Capybaras.

 

[Mmathis]

Whales don't fit in smaller ponds, so they're Hippos. In really, really dinky ponds they're call Capybaras.

While I like "hippo," "capybara" does seem a more appropriate size.

 

[Tom M]

Hope this is the right place to post for help. All of a sudden my pond is losing water at a very fast rate and only to near the bottom of the skimmer/filter. Pump still pumps to waterfall but is sucking air. Turned pump off and filled and no water loss. Savio skimmer/filter and Savio waterfall bio filter. Pond lined with EPDM aprox 8 years old. Location SW Washington. I uploaded a photo to media. Am I right in eliminating anything above the filter as a potential leak? The "water seeks it's own level" type of thing? I am now disabled and can't crawl on the rocks to get down into the filter so have a person coming to check it on Friday. With chatting he said it may be the waterfall? to me that doesn't make sense. Thank you in advance for your help.

 

[Tom M]

Pegs, that happened to my pond. I tried all of the suggestions already suggested until a pond expert directed me to remove any plants that may have been blocking the water from getting to the skimmer/pump. Once I removed some Yellow Flag Iris that were growing very close to the skimmer/pump, water was able to get to the pump. Turned out that the plant and roots were preventing water from getting to the pump. It was a simple fix and now I make sure that no aquatic plants grow near the pump/skimmer.

 

[sheribe]

I had a problem with my pond loosing water and my problem is when the spillway from my upper pond builds up with algae growth it impeds the water flow over the spillway to the lower pond. When it does that, the water backs up in the upper pond. One edge of the upper pond is a little lower than the rest of the pond edge so the water flows out this edge. My pond is surrounded by a cedar deck and it is hard to notice where the water is escaping. I noticed the water on the ground outside of the deck and looked to see where it was coming from and found where I was loosing my pond water. Now once a week or so, I take a stiff brush and brush the algae build up on the spillway so I do not have water backing up in the upper pond and out.

 

[Pegs]

Thanks everyone! A stinking mole had dug around the waterfall weir, not thru the liner but had shifted enough dirt that it made the liner pull away from the plate on the waterfall weir and had pushed enough dirt that there was no longer a hollow area behind the flowing water so was leaking through the waterfall weir.

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Glad you found and hopefully corrected the problem.

 

[Pegs]

Mole damage!

 

[morewater]

There seems to be some missing components on your waterfall vault.

Generally, a waterfall vault (like a skimmer) has a separate retaining plate that attaches to the vault itself by means of 8-12 stainless steel screws.

On initial install, the liner is mated to the vault with sealant, the retaining plate is placed over the liner, an awl is used to pierce the liner and the retaining plate installed, sandwiching the liner between the vault and the retaining plate.

The excess liner is then cut away for the waterfall vault outlet.

Your set-up seems to lack structural integrity at the liner-vault outlet interface.

Am I missing something in these photos, or are you missing a component? I see your liner as being mated to the liner without much consideration to stability.

If your unit didn't come with a mounting plate, they're relatively easy to fabricate and install.