Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait Dead crawfish.

I recently stocked 3 ponds with crawfish. The crawfish did well in 2 of the ponds and are all dead in the 3rd. The 3rd pond, where they died, has BG, Tilapia, RES, LMB fingerlings, FHM and mosquito fish. I also noticed the eel grass I planted is not doing well. I am suspicious it’s my water quality but not sure why it would kill the crawfish and turtle first. One of the other ponds i added crawfish to is on the same property and they are doing well. Any thoughts appreciated.

Calling Dr. Perca. Dr. Perca to the crawdad clinic, please.

(FYI, that's Bill Cody, who can identify the many different species of crayfish that I never even knew existed.)

Was there ice on the pond? Turtles and crayfish hibernate in the bottom mud. If there was a low O2 event and the pond had ice on it, O2 disappears from the lowest water (i.e. the bottom) first. If that happened and they were in hibernation, they wouldn't live.

How cold does the water get during the winter?

No ice on the pond, we got down into the 40s for water temps this winter but its been in the 70s for weeks. I have 2 aerators running every morning for 30 minutes currently. Water quality results as of yesterday pH 7.8, alkalinity 60ppm, hardness 120ppm.

pH is ok (depending on the time of day taken) alkalinity and hardness are good. Do a bunch of research on the proper way to aerate a pond. Running it 30 min a day you could be doing more harm than good.

If you don't have an O2 meter and just doing what you are doing, you could be playing with fire. If you have H2S build up in your pond, running the aeration system for that long is not a good thing. Without knowing how to properly aerate a pond, running bubbles of air in the pond could do more damage than good. There's a lot of misconceptions about aeration and a lot of Facebook Cowboys that are giving out information that don't know a dang thing about it.
Without an O2 meter, being able to take the water temp at the bottom of the pond is almost as good.

There has been a lot of info posted on here about proper aeration. I could re-type it, but it would take me about 45 minutes to re-do it.

Craws can withstand low O2 levels. Did you have a fish kill ?
O2 levels of 2 ppm are needed for craws while fish in general require 5 ppm.

Sorry for the delayed response, Montana trout trip got in the way. I will dig into the aeration pages. I do not currently have an O2 meter. I did not have a fish kill only the crawfish and lone small turtle. The LMB and BG are doing well. I did also notice the eel grass i planted is not doing well, related?

Check your water alkalinity. Less than 40 and you need to need agricultural lime to the water.

Alkalinity 60ppm, already added 10 tons of lime last winter. Finally got a few inches of rain the past 24 hrs, we were in a drought for several months and pond was down about 4 feet from the fall.

How much water was in the pond at 4' below full pool? What are your winter air temps and for how long? i.e. 20°F isn't bad for one night, but a month or two is a different story. If the fish are still alive in there, maybe the water dropped when the crawfish were hibernating and the water no longer covered them and they got too cold? One dead turtle isn't a big deal. Neither is a few dead frogs. Now 100's of them IS a big deal.

Still have 4-6 feet of water, winter temps hit 40s but not for very long. Fish doing great. Had a bunch of tadpoles but not seeing as many frogs as expected. The crawfish were new additions to the pond and died within 48 hrs of being added. Water temp was in mid 70s and i acclimated them as told by the supplier. Not sure why all crawfish died along with the only turtle and eel grass didn’t survive. FHM and mosquito fish babies everywhere, LMB gorging on them. On a positive note I witnessed multiple 5 inch LMB eating the endurance feed pellets with the BG.

I had issues hauling crawfish for pond stocking until I figured out what I had to do differently. If you are transporting them to cook and eat the next day or two, it's completely different than stocking in a pond. I even tried to haul them like I did fish and that didn't work. They crawled on top of the diffusers and I had O2 issues in the tank. The fine bubbles turned to coarse bubbles and wouldn't transfer enough O2 to the water.

CC,

(Hope you had fun on the trout fishing trip!)

I have never heard of a crawfish kill when no other (more sensitive) species were killed. But I am not an expert.

However, I think the low water levels may have been a causative factor?

If your pond was near normal pool elevation on the "winter burrowing" date, then they picked their optimum locations/depths based on that. If your water level dropped all winter, and then you got a very cold snap right before their "spring emergence" time, they may have suffered a temperature shock that was outside of their tolerance.

That is all speculation on my part.

If you want crayfish in your pond, then I would definitely consider re-stocking. You may have lost them mostly due to "bad luck", rather than due to a preventable condition in your pond.