Originally Posted By: Danbob
do you think the overfeeding was causing some of the "oil slick" scum? And why are the crawfish causing dirty water? Finally, when is the crawfish boil? Thanks,


I not really sure that I was ever overfeeding...if so, not by much. I'm really new at this too so, keep that in mind. My suspicions revolve around the following, possibly small, contributing factors...

1.) Slight overfeeding. EDIT: Even if I was overfeeding the fish, the crawdads would be cleaning up anything left over and still be hungry. Feeding rarely exceeded 1/4 pound of food per day.
2.) The muddy waters.
3.) The aeration system, early on, was run as often as possible so long as water temps stayed below 80/85. I think, maybe, the frequent turnovers keep any potential blooms from running a good course.

What I mean is, a bloom would start in the upper foot or so during the day, the aeration system would mix it in over night, most the bloom would get knocked back (killed off) considerably by being pushed down in the water column where no light was present and have to start over the next day. This might have caused a build up of dead blooms that floated to the top where something could use it and thrive, producing scum. I have no science to back this up, just my mind wondering off with some sense of logic. None of my water tests showed any substantial nutrients that I could see, but some serious junk was produced from something.

As far as the crawdads...they travel constantly looking for food, scrounging around on the bottom, stirring up the silt at ground level...then the aeration system would move it throughout the water column. Crawdads are said to do most of their scrounging at night...when my aeration system is usually running.

That's my loose theory, hopefully my water continues to clear up to the 20-24" mark. Can't wait to get home to check on today's changes.

No boil in the near future as the crawdads have been donated to help other pond meisters get their ponds seeded.

Thanks for the encouragement Danbob...stay tuned.

Last edited by Quarter Acre; 09/06/19 06:50 AM. Reason: see item #1 for edit

Fish on!,
Noel