Mike’s Fish Tank – Crayfish

I get people who want to breed crayfish. Here is some info regarding that. First of all, crayfish sexing isn’t that easy. The genital openings are located on different places on the body depending on whether it’s a male or female. Males have their genital openings behind/under their posterior pair of legs.

Females have their genital openings under the third pair of legs counted from the posterior. However, many individuals have one male as well as one female genital opening making sexing more complicated.
Bottom line, look closely at the first two sets of swimmerets. Swimmerets look like thin spiny legs below the actual legs. The first two swimmerets are the ones just after the last actual legs, these swimmerets will be longer and shaped like prongs in males and undeveloped in females. Inspect the area between the last two pair of legs. Females have an opening to receive and store the sperm in this spot.

Turn the crayfish upside down. If you see eggs or baby crayfish under the tail, then you are holding a female.

In the aquarium, spawning is possible anytime of the year. The male makes a little sperm packet and places it on the female’s stomach. The female then spawn her eggs passing them through the sperm packet so that the eggs are fertilized. It is not uncommon for the female to lose a claw during the process. She then places the eggs under her tail where they are kept until they are ready to be released. How long a period this will be depends on the water temperature and the species, but it will be at least 4 weeks. Some other factors that can affect the egg carrying period are water quality and food supply.

The mother will watch over the young a short period after birth.

The fry are very small when they are born but fully developed crayfish. Fry are usually detritus feeders which mean they will feed on decomposing plant parts and leftover food they can find while scouring the bottom. Beware of water quality. The fry are very cannibalistic and a large aquarium is required if you want a high number of fry to live.

To get the crayfish into breeding behaviour may depend on some triggers. These triggers are the amount of light hours, a change in temperature and a good quality food. This food should be based on boiled lettuce, sinking food pellets that contain shrimp or fish meat. This will get them into a good breeding condition. The female usually will not eat when she is carrying eggs.

Be sure to have a lot of hiding place such as rocks, flowerpots, pvc pipes and so on. Try to have one hiding place for each crayfish.

Pets A Plenty is located in the Blockbuster Video Plaza, Rte 281 Cortland, 753-9213. Open 7 days a week. We now have a website. www.petsaplety.biz. check it out. I post care sheets, coupons, new animal arrivals, contests and more. Any questions, email me at friskyy@hotmail.com

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