Today we’ll go over how to perform a bucket test to determine how much of our Sodium
bentonite pond sealant powder granular mix mesh you’ll need to use for sealing your pond type
of soil. You’ll need the following items for this bucket test:
- Two buckets of five gallons each
- A marker that is permanent
- Some gravel
- A three-eighths-inch bit
- Some dirt from where you intend to build your pond
- Some LoneStar Minerals Sodium Bentonite pond sealant
- A hammer
- Tape measure
- Scale
In the first step, take one of your buckets, measure four inches from the bottom, and draw a
line with your permanent marker.
Then you’ll take that bucket and fill it with soil until it reaches that line.
Then you’ll take your second bucket and drill holes in the bottom.
Then, using the same bucket, measure one inch down from the top of the bucket and mark the
spot with a permanent marker. This is your fill line.
Now, add 2 pounds of bentonite to your bucket of dirt. Make sure to thoroughly mix the soil
and bentonite. Then, only add enough water to moisten the blended soil with bentonite. You’ll
know you’ve got enough humidity when it forms a ball in your fist. You’re going to take the
bucket with the holes in it and fill it with about an inch of gravel.
On top of the gravel, place your wet soil mixture. You will then compact this with a hammer.
This is a vital process. After you’ve compacted your bucket, you’ll want to fill it with water. We’ll
wait 24 hours with the lid on. It takes 24 hours for sodium bentonite to fully swell. If you lost
any water throughout those 24 hours, you’ll want to refill the bucket all the way to the top. And
now here’s the real test.
After the second 24 hours, you should measure the amount of water lost from the fill line. If
you lost more than one inch, add 1 pound of pond seal bentonite to your next test. If you’ve
only lost a half-inch, you should only add a half-pound to your next test. Using this equation,
you may calculate how much bentonite pond seal you’ll need per square foot:
Times the LBS of Pond Seal used (y) by 1.40 = y x 1.40
This is for a standard size of 5-gallon bucket.
