weird critters in my pond

[Jenny]

The past couple of weeks, I've been finding all kinds of weird critters in my pond...snails, baby fish, mollusky things and more. I decided they all must've come in with the plants I got a month ago...other than the baby fish which I can attribute to my unusually active comets. However, I nearly fell into my pond from surprise when I was looking in today and saw a huge 6 or 7 inch lobster looking thing. I guess it must've been a crayfish, but how the heck did it get in there?!! Is it okay to leave? I'm worried about that huge monster of a creature munching on my baby fishies!

 

[lillysbaba]

If it is a crayfish it will eat baby fish. The ones in Texas can live in wet soil and create mounds of mud around the holes they live in.
I have noticed sometimes while cleaning a small submerged filter that goes to the UV lite that even though it had been months since I washed out the pads they were almost clean and covered with weird crawly crab looking things about 1/8 to 1/4 inch long. I am assuming that these guys eat the muck on the pads and they don't seem to hurt the fish. When I called our water garden store to ask what they were the person I talked to didn't know what I was talking about. I think that she thought I was hallucinating. It is truly amazing what you can find in your pond!

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Crawfish are a very good indicator of water quality as they are very intolerant on any pollutant. Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate are considered pollutants.

 

[Dave 54]

Do you have any phoptos fr a propper ID ?

Dave

 

[Mmathis]

Crawfish are a very good indicator of water quality as they are very intolerant on any pollutant. Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate are considered pollutants.

I didn't know that about crawdads.