Raising Crayfish

[Misha Gill]

After reading the most recent issue of  "A Tight Loop," I just had a bright idea. As the title says, I want to raise a crayfish. We already own a little ten gallon Freshwater tank. No, I'm not planning to clear this with the wife. I bet it takes her 3 days to notice its presence if she doesn't see me put it in. 

So, anyone have any experience doing this? I'm of course doing my research on the internet right now, so i'll save the practical questions. 

Clever name ideas welcome.... 

[Bryan Lanier]

Gilbert and if a second then Sullivan.

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[Jeffrey Silvan]

I had a little blue crayfish in my African Cichlid tank. It was cool until it started trying to attack all the fish, albeit always unsuccessfully. Every once in a while it would have success snagging the tail of a fish only to be towed to the surface before it released its grasp. If you have smaller fish in there (the smallest in my tank was about 3"), they crayfish will likely have more luck getting a meal.

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[Jeffrey Silvan]

Oh, and my wife named it Sheldon.

[namfos]

Po' Boy

[Rob Snowhite]

They do better in tanks by themselves. I had one that ate all my scuds, cress bugs, and standard trout nymphs. I fed it frozen peas and hot dog pieces. I'd look at the tank in the morning and notice it would clean out the tank. Hellgrammites are more fun if you can elevate a rock so you can watch them clinging underneath. Hellgrammite gills are pretty neat to watch.

[Brendan]

had five 10 gallon tanks going once as part of a science experiment on pH levels and crayfish... 

simple gravel + 4-6 inches of water + aerator.  some other rocks can help aesthetically.  They eat almost anything. regular fish food works.. so do table scraps.  Depends how big they are but i had five 2-3" crayfish in each tank. 

side note-  tho hardly a real study, found that crayfish were surprisingly immune to low pH levels. didn't study long term population or reproductive impact, but no change in weight/growth patterns down to a pH of 4.0 

[TurbineBlade]

At one point I was a card-carrying member of NANFA and a couple of cichlid organizations and had a 125 gallon, 2 55 gallons, a bizarre 50 breeder tank (Oceanic), a 29, and a 10 (I think?).  I've kept and bred all kinds of egg layers, mouth brooders (P. demasoni were a favorite...but they're incredibly territorial, even amongst mbuna cichlids).  In the 125 gallon I had a 7-stripe frontosa tank at its most recent iteration several years ago, but also kept large cichlids and various natives in there.  

Crayfish are about as easy as it gets - they're not even particularly sensitive to nitrogen cycling (i.e. ammonia or nitrite problems), but as Jeff said -- they will catch and eat basically anything they can get....which sometimes isn't much.  On the flip side, Beth can recall me feeding field-caught crayfish to a couple of my larger cichlids at one point.  

Most people fail with aquariums due to nitrogen cycle issues, and usually for adding too many fish (or feeding far too much) too quickly without establishing healthy, nitrifying bacteria to break down the waste.  

Though it's hard to quanify without testing the water, in general with something like a 10 gallon tank I would:

1.  Add 1-2 small fish for the first week

2.  Add 1-2 small fish the second week

3.  Feed sparingly

4.  Test the water and wait for the ammonia spike, then the nitrite spike, and then with both of those are at 0.....do a 25% water change and you're set.  

5.  Thereafter, you should never have to "recycle" the tank, and you'll generally only see nitrate levels....which you reduce via partial water changes.  

For a crayfish, just set up the tank and dump the sucker in there -- they're a hardy creature.  Some kind of sinking pellet will do just fine -- just don't overfeed. 

Gene

[TurbineBlade]

BTW -- We have hardy, interesting natives in this region.  In general, natives are more hardy than tropicals and tend to do better at most peoples' year round house temperatures. You basically can't kill banded killifish and mummichogs, though chogs get larger than most people can house effectively.  Black nose dace are great, but tend to hide a lot.  Tesselated darters ("tessies") are BULLETPROOF as far as darters go.....gosh, I can't believe they're even a darter considering the nasty places you can seine them around here.  Mosquito fish are great too.  

Frankly, I can't understand a fly fisherman not being at least interested in aquariums -- the behavior you can observe is pretty consistent with the enjoyment you can get from twitching a fly and catching a fish.  

If anyone wants to talk tanks (tropical or native) drop me a line.  I was utterly obsessed with tanks for years before I began fly fishing.  Discus, angels, tropheus, shell-dwellers, etc. Or salamanders, or virtually anything else -- 

Gene

[namfos]

If you are looking to harvest crayfish to inhabit a tank, the far upper reaches of the Monocacy is crawling with them - like up around Taneytown and almost into PA.

Mark

[Misha Gill]

Mark - I've been to the upper Monocacy and can confirm the vast quantity of crayfish in there. But that seems like a far jaunt. I'll probably just try to find one or two in 4MR. 

Gene - really interesting notes! Thanks for sharing your insight. I definitely want to catch a few darters now and raise them. I realize now that I have been mistaking them for banded killifish. 

Jeff, Rob - definitely going to have to watch out for their predatory nature. We've got 3 zebra fish, which are about an inch long. I'm not too attached to them (99c at petsmart) but it might cause Brooke some anguish lol. 

Brendan, do I need to buy an extra aerator for the tank? I currently just have a filter that creates a little cascade for aeration. 

[TurbineBlade]

Though you didn't direct it to me I'll answer you anyway -- "no", you don't need extra aeration in addition to a HOB (hang-on-back) or "power filer" created surface agitation, and therefore dissolving oxygen into the tank water.  You'll probably have a hard time killing a crayfish through tank husbandry if you tried to kill it.  

If you want to add a typical "stone" aerator -- it doesn't hurt anythnig other than the noisy pumps vibrating and moving about the place.  Just install a check-valve so you don't back siphon water, very slowly, onto your floor.  If you only get bubbles out of some spots of the stone and not others, you can simmer it for a while to help.

Gene

[TurbineBlade]

Sorry for the grammar -- I'm on coffee.  

Gene

[Misha Gill]

Cool, thanks Gene!