Does anyone know how to find a leak in a koi pond?

Question

I have a 4000 gal pond and i need help finding out where my leak is. I am loosing about one to two inches of water every 24 hours. It has one solid liner but the whole thing is filled with rocks. Does anyone know how I can go about finding this damn leak without draining/taking out all of the rock?

Answer 1

nope. however, you might try taking out the fish, and miking in some fine silt or limestone powder. it just may clog the leak but then you'd have to fix the ph and chemical levels again

Answer 2

If you let your pond drain until the water loss levels off, i.e., just let it go and don't keep topping it off, you can generally tell at least what level the leak is at. Obviously you have to keep watching it and make sure your fish aren't endangered by too much water loss, but if you finally stop losing water after the pond has gone down, say, a foot or so, then that at least gives you a ballpark area wherein you can at least start looking for the leak.

Also, do you have a stream or a waterfall or anything? Sometimes one misadjusted rock or twig can send water flowing up and out of the water feature, instead of back down into the pond.

As a final note, whenever we have pond leaks, we just give up and put in a new liner. We have tried patches, etc., but they never seem to work and ultimately are just as labor intensive as replacing the whole thing. We use those 500 gallon livestock water troughs made by Rubbermaid to house our koi in while we are making the change - pump old pond water into them, transfer the fish, give extra aeration and filtration, and if you're lucky, you can transfer the fish back to the pond within 24 hours.

Hope this helps - good luck!

Answer 3

are you sure that the water isn't evaporating? if it's been real windy it's possible to loose that much water daily... I had a 5000
gal pond that sometimes developed a leak, we would walk barefoot in it, when you find the "mushy" spot, you've found the leak - but you have rocks on the bottom, I see no way around removing all of the rock
God Luck

Answer 4

If the water is still and no, or little wind is blowing drop ONE drop of food dye in a section of the pool. You may be able to trace the leak after a few tries. Just make sure that the wind is not blowing or the fish are in the other end of the pool. Hope it works.

Answer 5

pour water in a watch carefully from where is the water sucked... maybe it will create small whirl will sucking, you can use it as sign, if not, just watch where it is sucked, maybe you can get in an touch the rocks and feel the air there... I know it's take a long time to do, but it's the easiest...

Answer 6

thats triky