Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding aquamax food question

new price as of Monday 4-2 will be higher; GFC is 17.60. what is the 46% protein feed?? I was going to order auqamax 600 is this adequate to HSB and then mix it with GFC to cover all the critters at the buffett

also does abyone feed the purina crawdad food to enhance their mudbug population???

Crawfish: Purina does not make crawdad food. To my knowledge, nobody does. In labs, sinking trout diets (AquaMax 5D03) are used routinely. They do make Crawfish Bait. The bait is designed to attract crawfish into traps, not grow them.
Prices: All food prices have gone up and are expected to continue the trend. For those steak eaters out there - watch out - prices are expected to soar. Back to fish feed - fish meal based diets are all increasing as manufaccturers are working through their stocks of already paid for fish meal. New fish meal is going for $900+, compared to the low to mid $400s two years ago. You all have probably heard what ethanol has done for the corn market.... all food is going up in price. Mark

You are correct - it is called bait, but I suppose they would eat it and it would be somewhat nutritious and enhance their population if you placed it around your pond in hopes of attracting more of them for the fish to eat ----??

If you want to attract new crawfish to serve as fish food, I think you would have to routinely stock crawfish. Immigration would be a slow process and not likely to increase the fish's food supply in a significant way. I think to have a good crawfish population, you will need good crawfish habitat and rely on their reproductive success. Mark

Does the healthy crawfish population cut down on weed problems as I was told they eat weeds.

Dean - Yes a dense or "good" population of crayfish will reduce rooted submerged weeds. Species or palatability of weeds will make a difference as to how well crayfish consume the weeds. Ponds with low or no crayfish predators are usually murky due to lots of bottom activity of crayfish and no or very few submerged weeds are present.

Mr. Cody - I've been told I should 'catch' them out of the pond because the 'hole' they create in the levee would eventually cause problems??

Pond Girl- It all depends. For the most part your advisors are correct. However your advisors were lumping all crayfish into one behavior. It was like saying since pit bulls are vicious all dogs are vicious. However not all crayfish species are the burrowing types. For instance papershell crayfish (Orconectes immunis) do not typicaly make burrows out of water on pond banks. Papershells rarely even make burrows underwater unless the water level gets really low and the pond or stream almost dries up, then some burrowing will occur. I am pretty sure that the worst crayfish burrowing offenders are those that climb out of the pond and dig holes down into the walls or edges of the pond walls. A pond dam perforated with crayfish burrows whould not be good for integrety of the dam or the clay liner.

If you have a strong or normal LMB population you should have nary a crayfish. If you have lots of crayfish then in almost every case there are too few bass.