Crayfish Breeding, a helpful guide

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Pooshybear

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Jun 11, 2009
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I'm on my 13th generation of crays now, the original parents are long long gone. I'd like to mention before hand that inbreeding crays has no caused any deformities yet, and I have had over 1000 crays easily.

The Basics

First you will need to aquire two crayfish, perferably 1 male and atleast 1 female. To tell that you simply need to flip the crayfish on its back and check.
Heres a great picture that I got from the site that helped me out way back when.
4.jpg
I bought two wild caught red crays as my original two crays, all of my crays are blue or white now. You want to make sure that the crays you get are the same species Ii've never tried interbreeding). Because different species of crayfish come from different areas of the world, your water temp will differ. Crayfish also have unpredictable temperaments, some species are more aggressive than others, so keep that in mind.

Housing

Your tank should have a large footprint, A 20 long works well. Having lots of hiding places is key, if theres just one cave the two crays will fight for it. You want to have many places, rocks, caves, pieces of pipe, anything that they can hide in will be great. If you catch crays out of a creek or something, they probably won't need a heater, but I have a had a heater with the wild crays I bought. The temperature range I have had crays live well in ranges from 64-84. If you buy a tropical cray then they will not have the same tolerances.

Water Parameters

Crays are very susceptable to sudden PH changes, but they tolerate a wide range. Treat them like fish, and they will thrive.

Feeding

Crays are scavengers, they eat anything they can get. Or catch for that matter. Do not keep small fish with crays, they will get snapped up eventually. I feed my crays flake food, jumbo shrimp, red shrimp, and brine shrimp flakes. They will eat whenever, just don't feed in excess. Drop a shrimp in for each cray, they will take it and probably crawl back into their hiding spot to munch on it.

Breeding
Better food seems to spark the mood for crays, if you find them doing the do (they clamp on to eachother) don't worry about it, just don't spook them. You will eventually find the female lots of eggs on her underside. It is much like RCS. Do not remove the male, but you might want to rubber band his claws incase he shows aggression. In about a week the eggs hatch and the babies are clinging to the mothers swimmerets. My method is moving the mother to a grow out tank and gently move your fingers over the babies, this will cause the babies to let go of mom. once all the babies are off put mom back in the main tank. Expect 200 babies or more

Taking care of the babies

They need food on a constant basis, If not they will become canniballistic. In normal circumstances they kill eachother anyways. If you start with 200, you will usually end up with 100-150. I have started depositing the babies to my sump of my 120 gallon tank, This is an ideal location for baby crays because the sponge over the pump collects food for them to climb onto and eat.
My setup:


and a video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EwrBxTLpGs
Final things: with each generation I notice two things: they become more docile and less aggressive, and they have a more blue or more white color.
 
Great article Pooshy! Thanks! I have a question for you. I have two blue cherax crayfish (i believe). About 2 weeks ago they mated 3 or 4 times in a 4 hour process. Prior to this, I had the female in my 60 gallon tank and the male in my 125 gallon tank. When I first had them together the male seemed aggressive towards the female, but now after mating they are holed up in this little cave together. He doesn't harm her and I keep them well fed. So many people say that they are territorial, but they do not bother each other when in the cave together. They stay in there a good part of the time.

My question is... Is normal for them to be shacked up in the same cave together? I check on them constantly to make sure he isn't attacking her and both seem fine. Also after two weeks, I figure I would see some kind of signs from her to indicate she was in berry, but nothing. She does seem to constantly curl her tail up when she walks around, but no eggs. They do seem to mate alot for not having any results. I have asked this on a previous post, but really didn't get the answers I needed. Thanks!


Also I failed to mentioned. They are about 2 1/2" right now. Is it possible that they still go through the motions of mating, but are still too young to produce eggs?
 
First of all check to make sure they are indeed male and female. Claw size is not a good indication. But no that is not uncommon, Males usually will guard the females they have paired up will to prevent other males from fertilizing the female. Females will berry, but they need a male to fertilize them in my experience, otherwise the females eggs will be unfertilized and eventually fungus over and drop. 2 1/2 inches isn't the max size but they should be sexually mature. Make sure when they latch on and do the do, to not let anything disturb them.
 
Thanks Pooshy! When I bought them, they told they were male and female and turned them over to show me how to determine. Like the picture above. They also have done the mating posture several times where they are stomach to stomach and he holds her claws back. I would say they did this about 3-4 times about 2 weeks ago. I have not seen them do anything since. Of course they could of when I was at work. Now they just both stay in the cave together. I do not see any signs of eggs. I assumed after two weeks if she was indeed pregnant (lack of a better word) I would of seen something by now. At one point, I was told to separate them, but since I have not seen anything, I put her back in with the male.
 
Thats really odd, usually once hit females will produce fertile eggs. What are you feeding them and how often?

I feed my fish/crays 2 times daily. Try feeding them a small nightcrawler or earthworm, crays go nuts for them. usually the change in foods spurs them on, you might want to also slowly up the temperature a few degrees.
 
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