Case of the disappearing water

[Big Red]

O.K. all, here's one.

Yesterday morning I walk out to check on the pond and I have lost almost 5 inches of water! I checked for leaks, couldn't find any, filled the pond back up, and monitored for the remainder of the day. All went well. Nothing was wrong. I was resigned to not having any idea what happened.

Fast forward; I wake up today...same thing but less water loss. 3-4 inches of water lost!

The only thing I can think of is an animal getting in at night...but none of my plants are moved, the water is clear and my fish are not spooked.

What the $%^&* is going on?

BR

 

[DoDad]

Sounds like a slow leak to me. You might want to check for a leak when the water stops leaking. This may take a day or two.
Then the leak is at the waterline. Also check all your plumbing for leaks.

 

[Oldhead]

Sounds like a slow leak to me. You might want to check for a leak when the water stops leaking. This may take a day or two.
Then the leak is at the waterline. Also check all your plumbing for leaks.

+1 what dodad said

 

[addy1]

Start the leak search, there has to be one somewhere

 

[Big Red]

I'm with you. That was the first thing I did yesterday. I have my pump in my skimmer and the water was down to the bottom of my pump. Thankfully I caught it in time before the pump blew out. So I checked everything, refilled pond with stream water, left waterfall off. No leaking that I observed. Turned waterfall on..no observable leaking. I am keeping a close eye on it today. So far nothing.
I keep telling myself it HAS to be a leak somewhere, but the fact that there have been no prior occurences had me completely perplexed.

 

[addy1]

Was there a blockage that was diverting the water from the system? between the waterfall and the pond.

 

[Big Red]

MYSTERY SOLVED!
A blockage! I cannot believe this. Maybe you all have heard of this, but this is a first for me. The water hyacynths in my falls/filter have gotten so thick that water was leaking out immediately behind and to the right of the lip. I have the sides and lip hidden by rocks so could not see this. As soon as I begain moving rocks, I discovered the problem. I thinned out some hyacynths and the water level in the falls dropped, and all of the water began to flow over the falls again.
Unbelievable. I should have been more observant and noticed less water was flowing over the falls, but I could not tell, and I had not thinned the hyacynth because I thought it looked so cool and was doing such an excellent job filtering the water.
Thanks for the feedback, everyone.

 

[addy1]

Glad you found it! Blockages sneak up on you.