# Question regarding crayfish



## cadillac_jack (Jul 12, 2013)

I have an interest in starting a colony of crayfish with the purpose of using the juveniles for feed. Now in all my years fish keeping I have had 0 success with keeping crayfish of any species IN THE TANK for starters and alive not 1 time in the history of my fish keeping world have i ever managed to breed any.. so I guess my question is .
How, #1 why do all the crayfish I have ever gotten seem to houdini their way right out of the tank. and I guess why is part b to this question.
for some of the more exp crayfish keepers how do you guys do it. because I have heard many many times that marble crays self clone and the breed like rabbits and I guess my question is for the cray keepers on here what do you do.

If someone wouldnt mind giving me a run down of how you are doing it and what things and steps do you take. I dont ever even look at them in the petshop because it seems like it is out of my scope to raise even one nevermind a successful colony of them but I really want to try. I know I am not the only one who has had difficulty in my little circle of fish freaks.

I have purchased blue cray fish from a 80 year old woman before who has told me she cant get them to not breed or to stop her population is forever exploding and her tank seems to be a poorly kept on auto pilot type of a set up. 

I have tried housing multiples together before and they usually end up killing each other or the decide as a group to jump ship and take teh long dry voyage across my living room carpet.

so if you have any tips or tricks or basic knowledge please EXPLAIN LIKE IM 5 years old. any and all help would be greatly appreciated
diet, water temp, ph, tank mates ect 
thanks
guys


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## Fire_eel (Aug 12, 2013)

well for starters your tank should have a lid, yes they are escape artists, but I have never had one escape on me. Ive had shrimp pull this off and one of them made it to my front door, but luckily I came home and put him back in before he dried up. I have also had trouble with getting them to mate/breed. whenever I buy a crayfish from a pet store I always look for ones carrying eggs. At least that way you *could* sell the babies and make some of your money back.

you should try posting this on Reddit too.


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## nigerian prince (Mar 8, 2013)

get one of those self cloning ones, to my knowledge theyre going to kill each other its their nature haha


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## DBam (Aug 9, 2010)

+1 on the tight lid, you can also just drop your water level 2-3 inches. They can't jump as well as shrimp. I held 2 for someone for a couple weeks, and they did fine in a breeder box for that time. My biggest piece of advice is to acclimatize carefully and don't allow any parameter swings, especially pH. They're the simplest thing to feed, they'll take anything. Just keep small, frequent water changes and you should be good.

Sometimes there's one species you have bad luck with a few times in a row, I've had that with my last few bnps. Just give it another try and a fair shot.

Sent from Petguide.com Free App


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## datfish (Sep 7, 2012)

I've been keeping crayfish for just over a year and I would say the most important part of preventing escape is tank size. When I kept my clarkii in a 10 gallon, she refused to stay inside (once she reached a reasonable size, this only started at around 3+ inches). Every night you'd hear her starting to climb out the tank on the HOB filter. Once I set up a 32 gallon tank for her and kept it around 1/2 for her, she never tried to escape and is still very happy in it. A few pieces of driftwood, some slate, a few rocks and a floating plant (perhaps duckweed would be the easiest for you, if you don't mind having a lot of it). I also have had good experience using lucky bamboo. If you plant it in the middle of your tank and make sure the top isn't near anything your crayfish could grab onto, it's a great plant. 

In my experience crayfish are extremely hardy (so much so, that my clarkii doesn't need to be acclimated nor care about parameters...not suggesting you try this). As long as your ph isn't incredibly low and you your mineral content isn't 0, you should be fine. They prefer unheated tanks, but using a heater to keep the temperature stable can be recommended. I feed my crayfish bottomfeeder pellets, algae wafers, occasional vegetables, any of my fish that have died and very rarely some unseasoned chicken meat. I also leave plants for them to eat/pick at. I find water weeds such as Hornwort or Java Moss work if you introduce a large amount at once to the tank. They also tend to pick at driftwood, so expect some damage to be done to it. Other plants just shouldn't be used at all, as they'll be destroyed and fertilizer could kill your crayfish.

In terms of compatibility, it really isn't as limited as you may think. Any fish that has a streamline body and is quick can work, I have Odessa Barbs with my clarkii and White Clouds and Dojo Loaches with my young (and small) marbled. Once the marbled get bigger, I will have to relocate them, as my Dojos won't be safe. You can't house any of the precambarus (North American) species with any other types, as they're carriers of the crayfish plague and this will kill any non precambarus species within a week or two. 

If you're looking to set up a colony as a type of food, definitely go with marbled crayfish. They self replicate, so you can really get a nice colony going with one. If you're feeling insecure about your ability to keep one alive, get two or maybe three. But be wary, as you could end up with more crayfish than you can handle. They're also very docile to their offspring, unlike most crayfish.

For further knowledge, I'd suggest checking out reddit.com/r/crayfish and reddit.com/r/aquariums


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## Claudia (Apr 21, 2010)

If u want to use them as feeder marble crayfish is the way to go, u will always have babies lol my marbles never scaped on me but my blue ones did lol many times we found them walking around on the floor hahahah u need a lid for sure. My setup was a 20g tank with heater and an aquaclear filter, I had a sponge on the intake.
Feds them wafers, flake food, sometimes cucumber, lettuce, also I put the extra plants from my tanks in there.


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