How to find a leak?

I have a 1700g pond which seems to have sprung a leak for no obvious reason
..It is a liner with underlay which has been ok for a year now there is a
waterfall running which have checked for leakage.I don't want to let the
pond go too low as I have nowhere to put the fish, is there any way of
locating the leak without draining the pond?
Thanks for your help.

colin s wrote:

I have a 1700g pond which seems to have sprung a leak for no obvious reason
.It is a liner with underlay which has been ok for a year now there is a
waterfall running which have checked for leakage.I don't want to let the
pond go too low as I have nowhere to put the fish, is there any way of
locating the leak without draining the pond?
Thanks for your help.



Are you absolutely positive it's not the waterfall? Everything I've
read says leaks, especially in newer ponds, are almost aways due to
the waterfall and can occur suddenly as it 'settles in'. One way to
check for sure is to turn off the waterfall and carefully mark the
water level on the liner. Leave it off for a while and see if the
level remains the same. Be careful not to leave it off for too long
otherwise you could loose your biofilter (assuming you have one). If
the water level doesn't drop at all, it's obviously the waterfall.

If it's not the waterfall, a common method of finding the leak is to
let the water level go down until it stops. Add 1/4" of water back
into to the pond and then place drops of milk around the parimeter.
The milk will 'flow' towards the leak. Good luck!

Pretty easy to isolate a water fall thats leaking.........but as Dan
stated, don;t leave it off longer than necessary........You can use a
heavy creame like half and half in a turkey baster and go along the
edges of the pond and watch for current flow, which will be pulling
the cream towards the leak.........I know of some folks that have used
food coloring as well for this purpose.....They make a fish safe dye
block, but its still going to mean shutting down all aerationa and
water movement so youy can watch for current flow pulling the dye.

I would recheck that waterfall and possibly temporary route any lines
so the water fall is out of the picture, and if the pond doe snot leak
its got to be the waterfall.......Waterfalls are perhaps the biggest
problem when it comes to leaks..

On Sat, 17 Sep 2005 09:35:31 GMT, "colin s"
wrote:

===I have a 1700g pond which seems to have sprung a leak for no obvious reason
===.It is a liner with underlay which has been ok for a year now there is a
===waterfall running which have checked for leakage.I don't want to let the
===pond go too low as I have nowhere to put the fish, is there any way of
===locating the leak without draining the pond?
===Thanks for your help.
===


==============================================
Put some color in your cheeks...garden naked!
"The original frugal ponder"
~~~~ }((((o ~~~~~~ }{{{{o ~~~~~~~ }(((((o

"colin s" wrote:

I have a 1700g pond which seems to have sprung a leak for no obvious reason
.It is a liner with underlay which has been ok for a year now there is a
waterfall running which have checked for leakage.I don't want to let the
pond go too low as I have nowhere to put the fish, is there any way of
locating the leak without draining the pond?
Thanks for your help.


Having just gone through the same issue...

Check for damp earth all around the pond and any stream you might have.
Examine anywhere that the liner is connected to things such as a skimmer or
waterfall.

The last two times I was losing water, once it was water bubbling over in my
waterfall box because I had too many water hyacinth in it. This last time I
thought I had located an issue where my liner connected to the skimmer box,
so I went and bought some 3M marine grade caulk and recaulked it. It still
leaked. So, I dug around the skimmer and recaulked the connection. Same
problem. I finally removed the skimmer, thinking it would be easier to find
a leak without it. My wife say's to me, "why don't you pour some water into
the skimmer to make sure it's not the problem?" Just to appease her (I mean
the skimmer is pretty tough stuff) I took the hose to it. Within 30 seconds
there was water coming out of a crack in the bottom. Go figure.

Good luck.

San Diego Joe
4,000 - 5,000 Gallons.
Koi, Goldfish, and RES named Colombo.

"colin s" wrote in message
news
I have a 1700g pond which seems to have sprung a leak for no obvious reason
.It is a liner with underlay which has been ok for a year now there is a
waterfall running which have checked for leakage.I don't want to let the
pond go too low as I have nowhere to put the fish, is there any way of
locating the leak without draining the pond?
Thanks for your help.

There have been several discussions of this.
You can use milk to find the leak. I would
go to groups.google.com and do an
advanced search on this group, using "leak
or evaporation" as the key words. Set
date to start around 1 Jan 2000 else you'll
have a lot more messages to wade through.

Gail