help on fish and crayfish in shallow creek in my back yard(2-5 inches at most parts).?

Question

i haven't found any fish or crayfish, and i'm wondering if there might be any. could any fish live in this creek and do you think there are crayfish?

Answer 1

If it's cold where you are, they may not be too active at this time of year. If it's warm where you live year round, there might be other explanations why you don't see them.

Does your creek dry up at any part of the year? How far is it before your creek flows into another creek? If yours dries up, then gets filled again, it may not have enough water for some kinds of crayfish to burrow down in the mud or gravel and they may have too far to travel to get to your yard from a bigger stream.

Are there lots of rocks in your creek? That's where crayfish like to hide, but there has to be space under them - the bottoms can't be buried too far or they have nowhere to hide. The rocks also makes the watet splash around more to get more oxygen in the water - both the crayfish and fish need to have oxygen.

There may be chemicals in your water that don't let fish or crayfish live there too. If the bottom is very orage, there might be mine drainage, or if it's green and has lots of algae, there may be too many nitrates and phosphates from fertilizers getting into the water.

If there are any rocks about 6" or bigger, try turning them over to see if there's anything under them - either on the rock itself, or on the bottom where the rock was sitting. You might find some aquatic worms or insect larvae. These are some of what the fish and crayfish will eat. Some of these are pretty neat themselves. Here's a link to what some of these look like: http://www.roaringfork.org/images/other/aquaticinvertebratesheet.pdf If you find any of these, they can tell you a lot about how good the water is - which may explain what organisms can live in your creek. Check your creek again sometime and see if you can find any of the things in the pictures in the link - and some will be very small, so you really have to look! If you can't find any, that means there isn't enough oxygen, enough food, or there's something in the water that keeps them from being able to live there. If you can find only thing listed in the section PTI = 1, the water is pretty poor quality. If you can find some PTI=2, the water is fair and if you can find any in PTI=3, the water quality is pretty good. Go by the highest PTI number you find. PTI stands for pollution tolerance index. You still might not find any fish or crayfish, but you might find some other neat critters. When you're done looking at them, it's best to put them back in the creek - they need cold water and lots of dissolved oxygen and these don't survive for very long in an aquarium (and most are fish food!). Happy Hunting!

Answer 2

Crayfish usually build mud burrows in the yard or beside a creek. They are good to eat.

Answer 3

I think the creek might be to shallow for fish to live in.

Answer 4

yes there could be crayfish just have to know were to look. they tend to hide under rockm flip them carfuly as to not cloud your vision by stirring up the sediment.