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tiges
15-11-2006, 07:10 PM
Got a dam built on my property. Not a huge one, but still a decent hole in the ground. It's about 35m long, and around 12m at it's widest, and about 6m deep :o. Put some lay down timber in there. Need serious rain now (preferably in about 2 weeks time, working on the house and gonna have some of the roof off). Then I can get some plantlife, and bait critters in there. And then eventually some real fish.

tiges
15-11-2006, 07:11 PM
The dogs like it.

tiges
15-11-2006, 07:12 PM
Now some rain please.

Tim_01
15-11-2006, 11:11 PM
nice dam tiges, what are you planning on putting in there, bass, yellas and silvers maybe? ;) Just make sure that the plants are well established and the smaller fish are breeding before you add some larger fish. ;)

cheers, Tim

tiges
16-11-2006, 07:02 PM
Probably mainly bass Tim. But I wouldn't mind a few Toga, and maybe try a few barra too eventually. Got a lot of good sources for both plantlife and bait nearby. So once it's got enough water in it, I'm gonna get the plants established. Then trap baitfish and shrimp daily and pour the little buggars in there. When I know I've got a healthy little ecosystem in there, then I'll look at the fish stocking. It's not gonna happen o'night, I know it's gonna be a drawn out affair.

Cheers
Tiges

Green
17-11-2006, 10:15 AM
Ohh the anticipation, you must have a truck load of patience tiges. Every mans dream, to fish in his own backyard, good luck with the project.

fish_outta_water
17-11-2006, 10:44 AM
hi mate :)
looking good , wish i had that kinda room :-[ looks like a nice catchment slope into it
just wondering if youll be lining it with clay? stops the water seeping away into ground table, sounds like a long time between fills (depending where you are)
so are you gonna leave the logs in as snags? :)

tiges
17-11-2006, 04:35 PM
Yeh the logs will stay in there as structure. It's all lined with clay already. You can see in the last pic where we hit clay about halfway down. The back wall has clay compacted almost a metre thick. Didn't seal the top half of the front wall, the water can't escape back up the hill and it allows seepage though the topsoil. I live at Lake Macdonald where there's no shortage of clay, guess that explains why the brickworks are down the road. We're pretty close to the coast so we pick up all the coastal showers, and with the storm season coming on as well, shouldn't be too long before some water gets in there.

fish_outta_water
18-11-2006, 08:04 AM
;D ;Dnice ;D ;D

Feral
24-11-2006, 09:49 PM
Gunna plant something along the wall to give a bit of shade, and attract the bugs etc? (to drop into the water for the fish, encorage some surface action!)

Kendall249
25-11-2006, 01:16 AM
sounds like every anglers dream.

roydsy
27-11-2006, 12:05 PM
half your luck mate, very nice. When I first saw it i thought man thats too small, but after i saw the dog in the dam i realised how deep it was. Will you have any problems with flooding, and have you implemented any form of pumping water out in that case of overflows.....? By the way, when are we all coming around to try out our lures in her... hehe :P

Be sure to keep us all informed on your progress, i too would love to do what you have done.

cheers

Roydsy

tiges
27-11-2006, 02:56 PM
Roydsy, it is designed so the water will overflow out the end at the top in the last photo. It feeds into a gully and down the hill to another gully/creekbed. Will have to design some kind of fish barrier for the overflow area. Gonna be a long time before any lures are thrown in there I think ;D.

Chimo
27-11-2006, 03:18 PM
Hi Tiges

(Oops Double Post second post has a little extra, sorry)
Nice hole, with 6 m depth should stay nice and cold in the bottom and low evaporation with small surface area.

Used to survey and design farm water supply systems and dams in a previous life so hence the next question......

Have you thought about putting in a screened, drop-inlet trickle flow outlet? #This thing will also solve your fish loss problem too.

Then you could dispose of the water below the toe of the embankment. You don't run water over the embankment for long periods, only for the briefest of time, depending on the size of the trickle flow pipe.

With a hooded entry to the pipe installed in the bottom of the screened drop inlet box you can run a full pipe (no vortex) and if you drop the discharge pipe into an energy dissipator in the drainage line below your dam, no erosion either.

Just a thought.

Cheers
Chimo

Chimo
27-11-2006, 03:21 PM
Hi Tiges

Nice hole, with 6 m depth should stay nice and cold in the bottom and low evaporation with small surface area.

Used to survey and design farm water supply systems and dams in a previous life so hence the next question......

Have you thought about putting in a screened, drop-inlet trickle flow outlet? This thing will also solve your fish loss problem too.

Then you could dispose of the water below the toe of the embankment. You don't run water over the embankment for long periods, only for the briefest of time, depending on the size of the trickle flow pipe.

With a hooded entry to the pipe installed in the bottom of the screened drop inlet box you can run a full pipe (no vortex) and if you drop the discharge pipe into an energy dissipator in the drainage line below your dam, no erosion either.

Why didnt you spill some topsoil down to fsl on the embankment face to grass it up quicker?

Just a thought. Sing out if I can give you any more info, if your want.

Cheers
Chimo

bdowdy
29-11-2006, 07:06 PM
:)good stuff i have a dam at a friends place thats about 2 times bigger and is stocked with murry cod and bass ,yella belly just make sure theres plenty of weed for your small feeder fish as it will help big time , theres nothing better than going to a place and knowing your in for some good fishing, good luck and keep us informed on the progress .cheers bdowdy ;)

tiges
05-12-2006, 09:26 PM
We got 40 odd mls of rain in the storms on Sunday evening. First bit of water found it's way into the dam. It's a couple of ft deep, so it's an encouraging start. Bloody dogs think it's their personal swimming pool, that's gotta stop.

bdowdy
07-12-2006, 07:47 AM
l ;D looks like your dogs ;) enjoy the new dam, good to see some rain there it wont take long and you be wetting that line. ;) cheers bdowdy

shayned
07-12-2006, 09:00 AM
Enjoying the thread mate, the anticipation is killing me and I'm just reading about it. Keep the reports coming for the next couple of years as it progresses. I can't wait to see the photo of your first fish capture out of it.

a_big_red_1
07-12-2006, 06:47 PM
great looking pond fella 8-)
will you be putting more structure in there at some time?

Daz

tiges
07-12-2006, 07:18 PM
Yeh bdowdy, bloody dogs think everything we do is for them. They're spoilt rotten. The anticipation's killing me too Shane. I'm a weather nut already, but I'm constantly scouring the weather sites and praying for massive downpours, bring on the storms! And Daz, I've scored a couple more logs to put in there, but not much more hard structure, mainly lillies and stuff around the edges.

Roughasguts
10-12-2006, 11:31 AM
Just wondering if 30 or 50 tyres placed in there would be any good for structure. But I love it, have you got a ramp there so you can launch the boat to easily work on your trailer

tiges
10-12-2006, 09:26 PM
Didn't think about that Roughy. That'd look so funny with my boat sitting in it, make a cracker photo.

roydsy
11-12-2006, 12:46 PM
Will your dam be electric only, or would my 5.5m full boar 115HP be okay to launch there?

hehehe :P

tiges
11-12-2006, 02:13 PM
Yeh drop it in there Roydsy, but please stick to the 6 kt speed limit ;D.

roydsy
12-12-2006, 09:01 AM
hehehe damn my 82lb electric does close to that speed :P

Hey, i think you are going to have to fence it off from the dogs. Good luck with it all, green with envy!

tiges
18-12-2006, 02:56 PM
Bit of an update for any of those interested. Got pretty smashed up by the storm saturday night, our neighbourhood was badly hit. We were lucky with no serious damage to the house, but heaps of tree's down. Upside is we got about 60mm of rain in about 45mins, meaning serious run-off. Dam is now about 2/3rds full. Some of the logs are floating, hopefully they'll get waterlogged and sink. Got plenty of gum trunks laying around the yard if I need replacements anyway.

Cheers
Tiges

tiges
18-12-2006, 02:58 PM
From the other end.

Chimo
18-12-2006, 07:41 PM
Hey Tiges

Your running out of time to put in your screened, trickle flow outlet to keep the critters in etc after she fills!

Looks like one or two more rains and you will have it to the top. Cool.

Chimo

shayned
20-12-2006, 09:29 AM
Keep 'em coming, loving this thread.

tiges
20-12-2006, 01:32 PM
Yeh I know Chimo, been so busy lately I haven't had time to scratch myself. So any work on the dam is unfortunately on the backburner. Seems like a fairly labour intensive little process, and with all the other stuff on my plate at the moment it isn't quite at the top of my list.

Glad you like it Shayne. I always noticed quite a bit of water running down the driveway when it rained. So we reshaped it a bit and fed a little channell into the yard. It worked a treat, and I reckon at least 50% of the water in the dam came in via this route. You can see in this pic the debri left on edges of the little feeder stream that was created.

Chimo
20-12-2006, 05:29 PM
Hi Tiges

I guess we have all been in your position, flat out, at one time or another.

Anyhow with the little stream you diverted in, once its chocka you will probably be able to divert it past the dam with a few sand bags and keep the pressure off the spillway.

Its the long trickles that stuff the vegn around and in the spillway and eventually tend to give you the headaches. Plus in this case once you get the dam stocked you want to keep them in.

How are you going to keep the birds off . They are going to have a feast once the water clears and you have the stock in there. Do you have a source of water lillies to get some of the surface covered to give the stock some cover?

Looking good anyhooo

Cheers
Chimo GOM etc

tiges
20-12-2006, 06:10 PM
Re: Birds. Got loads of lillies and other vegetation nearby that I can access, plus heaps more timber I can lay in there. Hopefully that should do the trick. ;)

wheezer
20-12-2006, 09:27 PM
oh come on mate you got one of the best bass dams virtually in your backyard! ;) now that's what i call lazy ;D ;D screw everythin else when we chuckin some barra and jacks in ;D

tiges
21-12-2006, 04:42 PM
Geez your an impatient bugger wheezer, "when are we going to Monduran", "when can we chuck some barra and jacks in your dam". Patience my friend.

Good thing that I have "the other dam" close by. As i think after rearing the fish in my dam they'll be like pets, and I might not have the heart to fish for them. Might have to just throw hookless poppers in there for the thrill of the boof!

peeler
27-12-2006, 02:32 PM
good stuff keep updating

shayned
09-01-2007, 08:26 AM
Is it full yet?

tiges
12-01-2007, 10:07 PM
Sorry I haven't really updated for a while guys, haven't been on the site much lately. Nah Shane, it's not full up yet mate. The occasional reasonable falls we've had over the past few weeks have been enough to maintain the level, but it's slowly dropping in between. A little concerned about it, but all the advice I've received has been that it will take time to settle. Thinking of getting some bentonite into it, but I'll give it a bit longer and see how it goes. Must be patient with these things, but I'd love a dollar for every time the missus has said, "look's like the dams gone down, ya should get some of that stuff to put in it".

Chimo
17-01-2007, 09:01 PM
Hi tiges

You'll get 4 to 6 feet evaporation loss a year from water in a dam so its probably not going out the bottom.

Anyhow bentonite would have to have been mixed into the clay inside the dam before it filled and then rolled before you got water into the hole so forget it, bugger of a job at the best of times so give it time and expect to lose a bit between runoff events in this heat. You won't tbe sticking fish in it for a while anyway.

Cheers

Chimo

murf
18-01-2007, 10:51 AM
Hi tiges

I would put in the screened pipe like Chimo said for the overflow, I use 90mm stormwater PVC in 70mx25m ponds but I have no catchment so you might like a bigger pipe. If you were around Coffs I have plenty of 150mm to get rid of. :)

Do you have mosquito fish (Gambsia affinis) in your area? sorry I dont know where you live. These are a real pest when putting in figerlings as they will bite the fins off your fingerlings and stress them to death. Does your catchment come from a creek or other dam overflow? if so it will be hard to keep them out. if not then the screened overflow will help keep them out from downstream. Also with the overflow pipe make it drop a minnimum of 600mm onto a splash plate so they can't swim up the overflow.

Would love to see some photos but the new site won't let me?

Have fun with it and ask questions as you go

Cheers Murf

blaze
18-01-2007, 07:33 PM
fairly sure that you can get evapouration rates from the weather web sites, might make it easier to work out if leaking. beninite will certainly stop any leaks.
cheers
blaze

tiges
19-03-2007, 02:43 PM
Noticed Bdowdy asked how my little puddle was going on another thread, so thought I'd do an update for those interested. Took a couple of pics y'day. We got some good rain about a mth ago, which lifted it up to about a metre from capacity. But it has slowly dropped back down to about the level it was at before, about 2/3rd full. Still not holding water terribly well, but it is only 4mths old, and has only had water in it for about 3mths. Been tossing a few lillies in there, and the logs are starting to get algae and stuff growing on them. Lots of little insects, beetles and stuff swimming in there. Just put my 1st lot of guppies and shrimp in there, so will be interesting to see how they go. Will try and do a few more regular updates.

murf
19-03-2007, 03:45 PM
Gday tiges

good to see a photo of it :)

Question, was the walls of the dam ripped and rolled? ie was the structure of the clay broken and then packed down?(even track roll after ripping)

if it was not then it might never hold any more water than it is already as the water leaks out of the little cracks in the clays structure, the dam that I built to take roof water from my shed I didn't roll and it leaks down a meter in height in a few weeks after rain, not that it bothers me but one day I will fix it, I didn't roll it as an experiment bfore I made my ponds.

I hope it works out right for you but there is a very large proportion of dams that are not constructed properly and hence leak, the constuction mob take your money with no guarantee :(

again all the best with it

Cheers Murf

tiges
19-03-2007, 09:19 PM
Yeh Murf, we hit some pretty good clay about half way down. It was put aside, and then compacted and rolled onto the wall. Done with a 22 tonne earthmover, with a big rolling wheel attachment. Got it done by a local guy up here, Eddie Marshall. He helped his old boy build Marshall's lagoon, so ya think he'd know what he's doing.

Cheers mate
Tiges

murf
19-03-2007, 09:37 PM
Yeh Murf, we hit some pretty good clay about half way down. It was put aside, and then compacted and rolled onto the wall. Done with a 22 tonne earthmover, with a big rolling wheel attachment. Got it done by a local guy up here, Eddie Marshall. He helped his old boy build Marshall's lagoon, so ya think he'd know what he's doing.

Cheers mate
Tiges

Sounds like it was done corectly and you should have no probs with it then:)

He did a very neet job on it,

it does take some time for the dam to settle in and you will always still get leakage to some degree even if its only a couple of % of total water loss.

Just need a couple of wet weeks to give a good soaking

Cheers Murf

shayned
24-03-2007, 09:43 AM
About time Tiges, i was wondering when you would get round to updating the thread. Keep it coming mate.

mako101
25-03-2007, 10:27 AM
I am also building a dam right now, can someone explain what bentonite is?.

Does the dam need to be empty to put it in?.

Hardb8
25-03-2007, 06:51 PM
Hey Tiges,
Lookin good m8,All ya need now is a small 4x4 slab,4 posts and a bit of tin on top,A bar bee and fridge under that,And ya got the ULTIMATE cubby.:) Keep us posted.

Green with envy.;)

Chimo
25-03-2007, 07:28 PM
Hi mako 101

Used to do some of this for a living so heres some light reading to get you into the subject. You will get other links and aspect to do more reading on from this too I think.

Good luck
Cheers
Chimo

Used to work with David Cummings who compiled this. He's a good guy who knows what he's talking about
http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/dpi/nreninf.nsf/FID/-5E9D730E86884BFFCA256BCF000AD4EE?OpenDocument

bdowdy
26-05-2007, 09:05 PM
good stuff tiges its coming along nicely.cheers bdowdy

tiges
27-05-2007, 09:17 AM
Hey bdowdy. Haven't updated for a while, mainly because there's been nothing good to report. It's still slowly draining unfortunately, to the state where it would've been dry within a month. 50mm of rain last night means the things about a third full again, at least the catchment is good. Gonna have to wait until it dries out and reseal it unfortunately. Oh well, back to square 1.

Cheers
Tiges

disorderly
27-05-2007, 11:02 PM
I am also building a dam right now, can someone explain what bentonite is?.

Does the dam need to be empty to put it in?.

Mako101,

Its a last ditch effort to try and stop leakage after a dam has been constructed in an unsuitable site or soil..
My only experience with it is with 2 dams which were constructed by water conservation in NSW on both my parents and my sisters property.In both cases I believe tonnes of the stuff was dumped into severely leaking newly constructed dams and there was no way that it had a noticeable effect on the water loss.
In both cases the entire bills were refunded.
In my parents case the dam wall was moved only 50m downhill and it held water without a problem.
If bentonite is mentioned then you have big problems and the contractors are clutching at straws.

cheers Scott

Hunta
23-08-2007, 06:21 PM
Sounds like a nightmare... Whats the latest?

tiges
23-08-2007, 09:12 PM
Since my last post when it was about one third full, it once again slowly dropped. But at a much slower rate which is at least a little encouraging. I've noted that it was almost 3 mths since that post, and that was the last time we had any real decent fall of rain. So I think it's slowly starting to plug itself. We've had a heap of rain here the last few days and this evening it was officially full to capacity:D . Gonna be interesting to see how it goes. The top 1/4 or so hasn't been immersed before, so it's probably gonna suck up a fair bit of the water. I'll try to keep ya's updated and maybe throw a pic or 2 up when I get the chance.

tiges
24-08-2007, 12:14 PM
OK, OK, enough with the rain already!!!!! It just won't stop. As I mentioned the dam was full by nightfall y'day....and we've had around 150mm or more of rain since then:o . Here's a few pics.

Hardb8
24-08-2007, 08:24 PM
Great news m8 :laola:.Just add Jack ;) .

disorderly
24-08-2007, 10:41 PM
What a wonderful sight.
Even your dog looks impressedhttp://www.ausfish.com.au/vforum/../yabbfiles/Templates/Forum/default/smiley.gif

Scott

flyfisho
26-08-2007, 07:18 PM
Tim the water hazzard is looking good mate, I reckon you will lose a few more balls in there now .especialy with that killer back spin
Has it dropped at all yet ?

bdowdy
26-08-2007, 09:02 PM
hey tiges the dam is looking good mate, did you see the bass i got out of my mates dam in the show us your bass section in freshy photos, thtas this years batch there looking good. cant wait to see some piccys of fish from yours. cheers bdowdy.

jackextracter
06-09-2007, 10:16 PM
The dam looks good mate lets hope it stays full.

loophole
07-09-2007, 11:00 PM
very intresting looks awesome cant wait for the next update

Timmy94
16-09-2007, 01:22 PM
It might just be leaking because of cracks from the drought? The ground would have been so dry but after this rain you might find its fixed itself and is now holding water. It looks bloody good. I wish i had a dam is it stocked at all?

Scott nthQld
21-12-2007, 11:36 AM
Any new development on the dam?

tiges
21-12-2007, 11:02 PM
Sorry for anyone interested, I haven't updated this thread for a while. Dam's doin' OK. Didn't get much rain after the floods back in late Sept, so it started to drop slowly again. Heaps better than before though, so it seems to be plugging itself. A few good falls over the past couple of weeks have pushed the level back up a bit. Pretty happy cos I haven't put any effort into trying to fix it, just left it to sort itself out. Been loading heaps of bait into it, on pretty much a daily basis. Shrimp and various little fish, got a healthy population of little critters thriving in there. There's a Yella and a bass swimming around in there too now. Lilly's have taken and are starting to pop up in little bunches around the edge. I'm slashing around the embankment and tidying up a bit around it tomorrow, so I'll try and get a few pics to post.

Cheers guys
Tim

Scott nthQld
04-01-2008, 06:27 PM
sounds like it will be a fisho's dream, I've been following the progress of the dam, and its good to see it seems to be plugging itself, meaning less work for you (every Aussie's dream!). What other species are you going to stock it with? I reckon a few jacks would be a good choice, hard fighting and aggresive, but maybe not a good idea once the dam gets fully established and other species start to encroach on their territory, it could turn into a real bloodbath!!

Any prospects of a few barra? or is it too cold for them in your area?

Chimo
06-01-2008, 08:33 AM
Hi Tim

Glad to hear the dam may be self sealing.

Any pics possible after the rain of the last few days?

Cheers
Chimo

tiges
06-01-2008, 08:42 PM
Cheers for the interest guys, took a few piccies today. It's back to full capacity after last weeks rain, in fact it was topped up after about the 3rd day of wet weather. The lillies took a couple of days to reach back to the surface, but the the little patches are popping up now. It's not a real big bit of water Scott, so I'm not really planning to throw too many fish in it. It's pretty deep but, 5m+ thru the centre. Aiming to put 3 or 4 more bass in there, and maybe a couple toga when the lillies and cover are more established.

Scott nthQld
06-01-2008, 08:52 PM
Have you thought of sinking a bore nearby to help keep the dam full through long periods of dry weather? Or isn't bore water any good for the fish?

Chimo
07-01-2008, 03:56 PM
Hi Tim

Thanks for the pics

Shame the contractor didn't use his level to keep his excavation below FSL.!
!

Is always good to have some shallow cover of water over the adjacent upstream grass to keep the water clean and to give a bit more variety for life forms in the hole.

Anyhoo hope you get a bit more fast flowing silty water in the dam before things settle down and we get back to normal weather so the silt can further block up the holes that the water has been leaking out off.

Looking good given the lack of rain etc

Cheers
Chimo

wawoftam
12-02-2008, 11:10 AM
OK OK I'm new around here but have spent the last half hour ready through this thread. As such I will require regular updates and piccies from you Tiges otherwise it will be half an hour lost.

tailorboi99
02-07-2008, 09:23 PM
Ohh the anticipation, you must have a truck load of patience tiges. Every mans dream, to fish in his own backyard, good luck with the project.

Sure is!!!!

WyldFisher
22-07-2008, 08:46 PM
Can tell the dogs love it!

I've got a dam that has Redfin in it.

I did have some photos of the dam but can't find them.

snagking
14-01-2009, 09:00 PM
Any more updates?

I'd love to have a dam!

Don't think my pool is quite big enough tho :(

cyclone
31-01-2009, 08:43 PM
Hi Tim read the progress of your dam with intrest and thought I would post a couple of pics of my dam and the critters that live in it. The biggest fish in the pics are under 5 years old and live only on the natural food source in the dam. The dam is 100mtr x 50mtr at the longest points. I hope the introduction of the bass goes well and it will be a real buzz when you get to catch your first one.

Andrew

snagking
01-02-2009, 04:02 PM
Wow cyclone, that would be a blast to have in your backyard!
Thats some monster barra in there.

tiges
02-02-2009, 06:29 PM
You just gave me a major case of dam envy Andrew. Good on you, that's an impressive set-up.

Outdoor Guy
15-07-2010, 07:51 PM
Need an update Tiges whats happening with the dam any fresh pics?

Outdoor Guy
24-10-2010, 06:41 AM
bumping this up

Stuart
27-10-2010, 11:53 AM
Just thought I would let you know mate that’s its illegal to build any new dams since Peter Nazi Beatty was premier. There are some pretty big fines if caught. I spotted this as it’s in pretty big bold words. I would be very careful mate.

Stu