Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Should I add these crawfish crayfish crawdads?

I'll research these crayfish myself, but I thought I would share the photos and see if anyone has some input.

Mr H's small pond is upstream from my pond, about 600 feet away. The land between stays marshy when we aren't in a drought. He has crawdads in his pond and since he's not stocking a large predator it may be a while before the medium WM and small RES control them.

I understand it may not matter in the long run, but I'm thinking about trapping some from his pond, if he permits it, and stocking them in mine. My RES are less than 1.5 inches now so the crawdads would have some time to get established.

Start here for id

http://www.fisheries.org/test/publications/fisheriesmag/3208.pdf

I would be very surpprised if the pond above yours has crayfish and yours does not. Crayfish can easily travel 600 feet to your pond from his especially during a hard rain. I can't see why adding more to your pond would be harmful.

I started trying to ID this crawdaddy and quickly ran out of patience. Mr H's pond is 12 years old and never had a leak so I'm going to stock these bugs. I'll see if I can find the same species nearby so that I can leave them in Mr H's pond for his fish.

I see no problem with stocking them but you would probably need some cover for the young. A couple of rock piles, some vegetation, or a little bit of brush will help.

I'm having some fun with these crawdads at the NANFA forum. I learned that there are around 80 types of crayfish in GA. Apparently we've (they've) narrowed it down to 1 of the 29 types of Procambarus that are found here.

http://forum.nanfa.org/index.php?showtopic=4456&st=0

Check out the photos that I uploaded directly to NANFA on the second page. If you click on the top black border you can get giant versions of the photos. Click on the enlarged photo and it gets even larger.

GW - Ask them guys on NANFA why you can't pickle the crayfish in isopropyl alcohol and send them in an alcohol soaked paper towel in a zip loc bag and send it to them in a box? That is what I recommend you do.

I will ask. I'm also thinking about asking some Cajuns because it seems it might be a White River crayfish which is one of the two main crayfish in Louisiana aquaculture. The photos look very similar and they are native to my area.

Mr H's small pond is loaded with these crawdads. There are always some in the minnow trap and lately every time I scoop a bucket of water from the bank I get 3 or 4. I always scoop from the same spot too.

A word to the pond stockers...Procambarus clarki (red swamp crayfish) is a burrower. It will burrow holes all into your pond bank, sometimes causing ponds to drain. I'm not sure of the white river cray. My craywhisperer will likely fill me in on the details!

I moved a few of Mr H's 'dads into my pond already. I assume they would have shown up eventually anyway because I'm only a few hundred feet downstream and it's pretty wet in between.

His pond is 12 years old and there where crayfish in the site before the pond was built. I'm hoping that since they've lived in his pond for so long that it's an indication that they aren't likely to breach the dam.

I'm keeping my pincers crossed.

GW have you looked at these SRAC fact sheets on craws ?

http://srac.tamu.edu/index.cfm?catid=9

I did a little reading about them quite a while ago ewest. Since I've stocked them now I guess this would be a good (late) time to read up on them.

Today I was feeding the FH and observing their behavior along the shoreline. I was feeding them fairly large Gamefish Chow and watching the water polo matches that resulted. Some of the largest minnows would end up in water so shallow they had to wiggle to get back out. I was watching a school of Gambusia sized FH when I saw an odd flash from one of them. It looked like it turned onto it's side suddenly and then stayed that way. I couldn't figure it out until I noticed that it was sporting one of these . The FH got progressively smaller until it disappeared at which time the crawdad turned and retreated to deeper water. It ain't easy being a Fathead.