trying to keep crawfish alive

[downtownoffice1]

For the last few years we would "save" several grocery store crawfish from the boiling pot and throw them in our small fish pond out back. Generally they would escape and we would find them dead in neighbor's yards or the alley. We thought they were all dead. THEN we found lots of babies (fry?) in the cat tails. The babies started growing and last week I noticed about 20 crawfish coming to the surface to eat the food pellets we were giving to the goldfish. I haven't seen any crawfish for several days and tonight found 3 dead just floating. We live in West Texas and the weather has been in the 90s this last week. Oh, we do have a waterfall in the pond. Any suggestions?

[DemonShark]

Yea you could eat em lol

[William]

maybe not the suggestion he was looking for.

Have you checked the water quality?

[Full3R]

in the cats tails?

[rollie]

is the goldfish eating them.

[DemonShark]

They might not be getting the food nessacasry for survival make sure you got rocks for them and they do eat some plants rember they are hunters so yyou might have to suppy them with some kind of fish for them to snack on water quilty too they like calm water

[Full3R]

maybe one died by natural causes and spread a disease through the pond, also if theres a numerous amount of crawfish in the pond and the pond is to small there could be not enough airation in the water i've had that happens with my yabbies

[tanya]

i'd buy small minnows too feed them. i've done this and it helped my big crawfish. i also fed mine sinking goldfish granules and shreds of ham or bacon or ground bee but mine where always in my 30 gallon tank. also you might want to make sure that you really are seeing dead bodies and not just there molted shells.

[joshioliver]

i sell crawfish and i usually keep them in buckets and i usually find that if you leave them in the sun they start dieing and if they are crouded in one area they die, also you should use the water from the place they came from because tap or other water might havve other chemicals in that might not harm us but would harm them.
leave broken up food in the area you have them because they cant eat whole pieces they just nibble. if you would like to catch and sell crayfish to restaraunts i advise you ask the resaraunt if they would like any and ask when they want them, you should catch them early in the morning the same day they need them, good devices are put a rock in a sock or a small netted bag, then put some meat and they also like pasta!?! for some reason.then you tie fishing line or sring or something to the bag or sock then leave it on the bottom of the water for about 20 secconds then put it up not too quickly but not too slow then when you can see the bag use your net to hoist it out of the water. if you are interested in making traps for crawfish instead of buying the traps add me on msn and ill tell you how to make some.

hope this helps
peace

[joshioliver]

also dont eat dead crawfish because they give off and enzyme which decays their insides and you wouldnt want that.