Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Wildlife Management I want to add Blue crabs to my pond

I have a 3rd acre CBG, LMB, & CC pond. I want to add some blue crabs to the mix. I am not worried about their reproduction. I know they need salt for that to happen. I just wanna know what to expect. I live in Louisiana and we love seafood here. Could they help balance the pond by eating some of the bg eggs or would they more likely ruin the balance by eating too much of the eggs. Please tell me your thoughts

would they even survive in fresh water?

Maybe freshwater prawns would be a better bet.

http://www.aquacultureoftexas.com/farminginfo.htm

I caught one in a lake I work on down in the Houston area. The lake is 2-3 miles from the bay. Not sure what the salinity is but there are freshwater fish in it.

I catch blue crabs up in Washington, DC on the Potomac River in the summer where salinity is pretty much 0. I have kept small ones in freshwater aquariums where I had only a small amount of aquarium salt and was keeping normal freshwater fish species. So if given some time to adjust from a saltier home to a freshwater home they would most likely survive OK. Since you live in Louisiana, they probably won't have issues with winter kill.

As far as how they would affect the balance of the pond? Not sure... They may prey on the eggs of all species some, but I don't think they would be overly predacious on fish eggs. Not sure they would get enough food in a small body of water like yours to have reasonable growth rates though unless you supplementally fed them.

I went to the pond one morning and found a dead blue crab at the waters edge. This is in IN. I was really puzzled. Later I found out a friend was in FL and brought it back on ice and planted it as joke.

Blue crabs will survive in fresh water
Will not reproduce
There is a guy in Jacksonville that has redfish, snook, and tarpon in his freshwater pond as well if your looking for other cool bonus fish ideas
(not sure about legalities of this)
I would think that they would function as they do in saltwater--opportunistic garbagemen

Yes i have every intention on supplementary feeding them. I am removing bullheads from the pond. The crabs can have those

I guess if you cut the heads off the bullheads and throw them in by the pound, you will keep your crabs happy. May affect the water quality of your pond a bit though.

Blue crabs will survive just fine in fresh water. Simply acclimate them slowly to fresh water. They are eating machines, Will eat creyfish, Snails, insects or any thing can pin down. They would eat dead bullheads for sure. they do get large in fresh water so if you put a bunch of small ones you caould have very large one. Also they will eat each other. you could try it but if you put a bunch they might eat every thing first then start kiling each other...

Yesterday I added 1 1/2 dozen small blue crabs to the pond. I also kept 2 pair that I hope to breed in brackish tanks with sand bottoms. The ones in the tanks are doing well and are very active. They are eating bullheads that i cut open and feed to them. I can only hope that the ones in the pond are doing as well. Thanks for all of your inputs and I will keep yall updated on the progress

Female blue crabs only breed once. They breed with a male during their last juvenile molt. If you catch mature females or see the small one breed after a molt, remove the male. It is of no use for breeding after that. it will only end up eating her when she molts again in a small space. Blue crabs like to release eggs in salty water but might in brackish if they are having no choice, worth try. They release the eggs into the water they hatch and larva live as plankton for some time before dropping to the bottom as little crabs. Lots of canabalism, if you do pull off a hatch add lots of hides, netting or something .as canabalism is extremely high. You will ned to feed other plankton of the sort. I read squizing hard biolded egg yolks through chese cloth works.

Even in your pond it would be good to make sure they have hides , cinder blocks , pallets or something. When they molt they are vulnerable to the other agressive crabs looking for something to eat.

I have read allot on blue crab life cycle and attempts at farming them.

I like your project, please keep posting updates

Thanks Bobby, from my understanding they do need salt to breed but it does not need to be as high as salt water. They live from fresh, to brackish, to salt water but can only reproduce where salt is available. So the female migrates to an area where the salinity raises to brackish or higher. At least that was from the sources that I read. But the salt level is not an issue. I can always raise the salinity. I would rather remove all doubt that the water is where it should be for mating

I bet by the end of the summer you will have a few really big crabs, exsoecially if you are catching cutting and feedign bullhead catfish....
any time you clean fish too you could toss the carcus and they would eat that up....
I was considering puttnig some but I am trying to get a food chain started and have added cray fish when I can get them. I figured they would just wipe them out.

How are your Blue Crabs doing?