Brackish water pond studies were conducted in coastal Southwest Louisiana with blue, lctalurus furcatus, channel, lctalurus punctatus, and white catfish, lctalurus catus, to determine if these freshwater species could be cultured in saline ponds. The channel and white catfish proved to be the most rapid growing and the most hardy, averaging 0.80 and 0.70 pounds. The blue catfish averaged 0.6 pound. The channel catfish had the lowest S-value of 2.3, the white catfish had a S-value of 2.9 and the blue catfish had as-value of 4.0. Survival was highest for channel catfish, 91 per cent, and lowest for the blue catfish, 69.6 per cent. The condition indexes, using standard length, calculated for the white, channel and blue catfish were 2.15, 1.70 and 1.49, respectively. Blue and channel catfish collected from surrounding waters had K values slightly less. Length-weight relationships were calculated for the pond reared blue, channel and white catfish and were compared to that calculated for wild blue and channel catfish collected from the refuge. The lengthweight relationships for the pond reared channel catfish was Log W = -5.530 + 3.196 Log L, blue catfish was Log W = -7.566 + 3.985 Log L, and the white catfish was Log W = -5.487 +3.237 Log L. The R2 values were 0.998, 0.999 and 0.995, respectively.
