Pond dredging Project

[JeremyBX2200]

Tie a long chain around your SCUT. Now use a 30 ton excavator to pull the SCUT through the pond to dredge the bottom.

Hmmmm........probably not

 

[JeremyBX2200]

What’s the motivation? I have a similar issue in my smaller pond which if I’m lucky is an eighth of an acre.

As somebody mentioned above, you need to be careful, since if you disturb the pond bottom and cause a leak to happen you may regret what you did, that in hindsight, maybe, you didn’t have to do.

I don’t have any good ideas that I can share or use myself…wish I did.

Well, I have lost a couple of swim shoes in the muck. I don't know what all is in the pod, and judging by other things I have found around the property it could be a bunch of junk.

 

[JeremyBX2200]

I'm in the same boat, my pond is a mess but I had no money or time to work on this year, so 2025 it'll have to be.

From what I was reading bottom up aeration proves to be helpful, so i am starting there and using a pond rake 16"-24" with a rope and have the tractor pull it out. it will take awhile but figure I'd work on it slow to see what works and what doesn't. Like you my pond is heavily stocked with fish, frogs, turtles and I'm on conservation land so draining is impossible..

Keep us posted!

Let me know what you try and how it works

 

[JeremyBX2200]

I go by a farm pond that was cleaned out 4 years ago with track hoe and dozer to push it over the dam. It was a dry year that year, and the pond is STILL dry.

It turned out years back the pond was dug so the construction co. could get material for a nearby bridge construction. They hauled in clay to seal the pond. The cleaning eliminated the sealing clay!

The new owner only discovered the reason the pond was there and it's sealing clay after the damage was done.

When removing material from a pond be aware of possible outcomes.

When using a machine to remove the muck off the bottom (in a dry pond) it is necessary to cut down into dry material under the muck or the blade will never clean off or keep track clean. That gets down into material that seals the pond. That's where trouble begins.

This is something I have been thinking about also. I don't know if something was used to seal the pond. Where I am at we are all hard clay, so I dont think it would have to be sealed. The neighbor said a previous owner years ago just dug it out with a tractor and then let it fill up. Our water table is pretty high too.

 

[JeremyBX2200]

This guy tried it .

Something along these lines is what I was thinking about. I don't have all the vegetation to remove though.

 

[Sidekick]

I think you can buy bags of bentonite fairly cheap to reseal small areas without draining if there's a problem.

 

[JeremyBX2200]

I think you can buy bags of bentonite fairly cheap to reseal small areas without draining if there's a problem.

Thanks.

 

[JeremyBX2200]

I was thinking maybe something like this with a longer rope that I could pull across the pond. Another option vs a long arm tool on the FEL or 3pt

 

[GreensvilleJay]

there's another post about using a landscape rack looked like a good idea !
maybe remove 1/2 the tines to do a 'coarse' raking ?
Whatever you use best tie GOOD knots in a NEW rope !

 

[D2Cat]

I was thinking maybe something like this with a longer rope that I could pull across the pond. Another option vs a long arm tool on the FEL or 3pt
View attachment 136847

The tines are welded on the wrong side!

 

[mikester]

I wonder does Kubota offer an OEM snorkel kit?

Put a bigger bucket on the SCUT it will dredge better than with a snorkel kit.

 

[Russell King]

I don’t know if this would work for you but it is interesting

dredge bucket at DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo. Privacy, Simplified.

duckduckgo.com

perhaps a bucket like this but a manual close version hanging from a cable ac the pond. There would have to be some pulleys involved to raise it and to pull to the edge but woul be a fun project to design and build.

Clamshell

Clamshell buckets, both rotating and non-rotating, are a excavator attachment suitable for a variety of demolition and construction jobs.

hawkexcavator.com

 

[jaxs]

Your imagination might be running wild. You say your soil is hard clay then say bottom is gravel along shore and covered with 12" muck farther out. You say there's not much vegetation but you think a rake will make a difference. You can drag that rake through pond all day and still not pull enough mud onto bank to fill a 55 gallon barrel. To increase depth of a one acre pond by 1 foot requires 5,863 fifty five gallon barrels of mud. What you will accomplish by dragging a rake through pond is suffocate the fish with stirred up silt.

Buy a 3 point dirt scoop and dig an additional pond. That'll keep you busy and yield 100x more water storage than same # hours dragging rakes plus you'll wind up with 2 ponds and not kill fish off.

 

[JeremyBX2200]

I don’t know if this would work for you but it is interesting

dredge bucket at DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo. Privacy, Simplified.

duckduckgo.com

perhaps a bucket like this but a manual close version hanging from a cable ac the pond. There would have to be some pulleys involved to raise it and to pull to the edge but woul be a fun project to design and build.

Clamshell

Clamshell buckets, both rotating and non-rotating, are a excavator attachment suitable for a variety of demolition and construction jobs.

hawkexcavator.com

When searching I saw that. Looks kinda interesting.

 

[JeremyBX2200]

Your imagination might be running wild. You say your soil is hard clay then say bottom is gravel along shore and covered with 12" muck farther out. You say there's not much vegetation but you think a rake will make a difference. You can drag that rake through pond all day and still not pull enough mud onto bank to fill a 55 gallon barrel. To increase depth of a one acre pond by 1 foot requires 5,863 fifty five gallon barrels of mud. What you will accomplish by dragging a rake through pond is suffocate the fish with stirred up silt.

Buy a 3 point dirt scoop and dig an additional pond. That'll keep you busy and yield 100x more water storage than same # hours dragging rakes plus you'll wind up with 2 ponds and not kill fish off.

Thanks for the feed back.

Just kinda brain storming and was wondering if anyone here had a setup that worked well.

 

[GreensvilleJay]

I cleared out a long ,windy, silted up creek one year only took 2 hours, case of TNT and box of blasting caps. Sure was pretty looking afterwards !

 

[jaxs]

Thanks for the feed back.

Just kinda brain storming and was wondering if anyone here had a setup that worked well.

At the risk of sounding like I don't have anything to say other than repeating myself, try to be realistic about what a 22 horsepower tractor weighing less than 2k pounds is capable of. What would be your definition of "working well"? The chore you have in mind is traditionally done by machines (trackhoe) weighing several tons. Can it be done with a Bx2200? Maybe. Do folks often do it with BX220 and similar? No. Maybe you should borrow or rent an attachment and test it before buying one. Better still,talk to a marine life expert before doing anything. I think they will say everything in pond besides turtles will die and the turtles will likely crawl off in search of another home. Even if you capture and hold Bass,carfish and bluegill while doing the work, it will take years to reestablish ecosystem.

Did I mention that digging another pond costs less and makes more sense?

 

[JeremyBX2200]

At the risk of sounding like I don't have anything to say other than repeating myself, try to be realistic about what a 22 horsepower tractor weighing less than 2k pounds is capable of. What would be your definition of "working well"? The chore you have in mind is traditionally done by machines (trackhoe) weighing several tons. Can it be done with a Bx2200? Maybe. Do folks often do it with BX220 and similar? No. Maybe you should borrow or rent an attachment and test it before buying one. Better still,talk to a marine life expert before doing anything. I think they will say everything in pond besides turtles will die and the turtles will likely crawl off in search of another home. Even if you capture and hold Bass,carfish and bluegill while doing the work, it will take years to reestablish ecosystem.

Did I mention that digging another pond costs less and makes more sense?

Yep, heard you the first time.

Don't know if it can be done done with my machine, if it could be done I dont know how well it would work.

First step to figuring it out is to look at the possibilities. Second step would be to say if the possibilities are realistic or would work. I am on step one.

Would a bigger machine probably work better? Yep.

 

[jaxs]

Yep, heard you the first time.

Don't know if it can be done done with my machine, if it could be done I dont know how well it would work.

First step to figuring it out is to look at the possibilities. Second step would be to say if the possibilities are realistic or would work. I am on step one.

Would a bigger machine probably work better? Yep.

I'm not trying to rain on your parade , more so let you know mistakes I've made so you can weigh the possibilities.

 

[JeremyBX2200]

I'm not trying to rain on your parade , more so let you know mistakes I've made so you can weigh the possibilities.

I get what you’re saying, but I also don’t fall in the “You machine is too small” camp all the time. There are times when it is, but not nearly as often as some people say.

I have been told a ton “You can’t do it, rent a big X”……and then I go ahead and do it.

I may not try it though, because of the point of things getting stirred up and killing the fish etc. I don’t want to do that.