Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Paper-shell crayfish and Japanese snails

I have a question on adding a lot of papershell crayfish and some Japanese snails to my pond this spring.

My pond is a little over one acre 15’ at shallow end 20’ at deep end. Rip rap medium size stone around whole pond and artificial structure in deeper areas.
It is a swimming and fishing pond,
Primarily a SM YP RES and WE pond with a good base of FHM and GSH. Has been stocked for two years now with good growth of fish, I hand feed twice a day during warm months.
I also put one gallon of aquashade in pond a year late spring.

Wanting to add the paper shells for forage and to help with pond cleaning and the Japanese snails for pond cleaning.
Would there be any downside to doing this? Is there anything I should watch for?

I see a little filament algae and a little water plantain growing in shallower beach area, also get some leaves blown into pond in fall.

If you want to establish underwater plants in the pond, then I would get that done before adding Papershells.

Do you know that snails are part of the life cycle of swimmers itch?

I had to look up "swimmers itch"! I had no clue what it was and the pics don't look great! This is why I do tons of research before trying to make ANY adjustments to an aquatic environment. There's so many unintended consequences that can pop up.

Jap snails are a bad idea. Pond cleaning due to Jap snails - doubt it. Have you seen any scientific research about their ability to clean pond bottoms other than opinions on the internet? If you really want something to eat pond bottom organics and small plant growth use tilapia. Tilapia(TP) are excellent for cleaning the pond IF you put in enough to do the job. ENOUGH is the main question. One worker can do only do so much each day. Sometimes it takes more team members to get the job done based on how much clean up needs to be done. If you don't like what TP do for you,,,, then do not add anymore next year. CAN'T GET THAT BENEFIT FROM JAP SNAILS who are also an exotic invasive species - bad idea.

Well Japanese snails are off the list.
The swimmers itch does not sound good at all! And we swim a LOT in our pond.
The papershell crayfish still sound good though, will add some next month would like to give them a chance to spawn so they might be able to sustain some type of population as forage food for fish and to health with algae and dead leaves.

I’m not really big on having much plant life in the pond, I do realize some will just come on its own and that is fine. The sides of the pond are pretty steep so that should help not having to much along with the aquashade. Our swimming area starts out at 2’ and gradually goes to 5’ then drops to 15’ fast. Have had some volunteer water plantain in the shallower beach area the wife pulls it so it isn’t getting out of control that we have noticed.

Having plants in the pond will help with the algae issues. SOMETHING is going to utilize the nutrients that are there. It's your choice what you want that to be.

Me? I'd take underwater plants vs. algae.