Crayfish in pond?

[herzausstahl]

So has anyone taken crayfish and put them in their pond? what are your results, aside from a tasty snack for you koi?

 

[SE18]

great idea! I'm going to look for some now

 

[HARO]

So has anyone taken crayfish and put them in their pond? what are your results, aside from a tasty snack for you koi?

A tasty snack for some raccoon. :grumble:
John

 

[Nova]

The third grade teachers put some in our school pond. Three out of six have survived and they caught and ate 3 goldfish. We don't have koi in the pond but the goldfish they caught were 4 inches long. I noticed their fins were tore up and two had small chunks taken out of the backs. The next day the fish were gone. The crayfish hide under rocks or in the folds of the liner and when a fish comes close the crayfish quickly jump out and grabs them. No fish have died for a few weeks now so I am guessing the remaining fish have learned there are predators in the pond and look to avoid them. Of course when the crayfish die the fish eat them.

 

[HARO]

Most likely that was the scenario with the fish as well; they died and the crayfish ate them. They ARE good scavengers!
John

 

[fishin4cars]

actually they aren't that great of scavangers, they do however put out a lot of waste as they constantly feed on anything. they can be extremely dangerous for small fish, and they will attract birds. Crayfish will get into a pond naturally, I've seen it many times and one or two with medium size fish will work with no issues, somtimes. But be careful not to keep but just a few and watch out for a population explosion. I've cleaned out ponds that turned green and stunk and get down to the bottom and not only found that the pond was overstocked with fish but had thousands on tadpoles and hundreds of crayfish. that kind of scenerio led to the problem and the pond keeper never noticed they had a problem until the water fowled.

 

[fishin4cars]

Also want to note that there are many species of crayfish (called crawfish or Mudbugs here, LOL) some never get very big and others like the ones here get quite large. So if your still trying to decide if you want to add or not, take a little extra effort and find the kind that won't get as large and will adapt to your paticular area.

 

[Mmathis]

You mean you have crawdads in Wisconsin? [crawdads, crayfish, crawfish, mudbugs]. I thought they were only in the Southern areas.

 

[HARO]

We even have them up here in the Great White North!
John

 

[herzausstahl]

Oh yeah, we call them crayfish and they usually stay small, largest get to 6" I believe. Would probably have to do some checking on the state DNR site to see which species we have here. The ones I would catch would be only a couple inches. Wasn't sure if I would have to worry about them going for the fish or trying to burrow down to hibernate for winter and end up putting a hole in the liner. They do burrow under rocks, where you can catch them. Fish will eat the small ones too though, ran into a father and son last week catching them in a stream to use for fish bait. I have even found them under rocks in a stream bed that dried up during droughts in summer.