Blue Cherax in "berry", worried

[Newt]

I ordered a Blue Knight Lobster Cherax sp. to put in my 75 gallon tank. Well, it's a she and she came in with eggs.

She has dug herself into her cave, and graveled up the "door". The first night she was out cruising the tank, eating, but I haven't seen her in 3 days.

Yesterday, during a water change, I lifted the cave up off her and she has lost allmost all of the eggs. I cleaned up the now fuzzy eggs and put the cave back over her.

I'm worried that the eggs still under her tail are rotting as well. Should I take her out and remove the eggs? I don't want the fungus on the eggs to attack her and cause any sickness.

Thanks!

 

[Oddball]

Don't bother her any further. She will detach all of the dead eggs and/or larvae and retain the viable ones. The shipping caused the loss of part of the brood. You can drop rabbit pellets and sinking catfish pellets near the opening of her cave just before you turn the lights out. If she wants to eat, she'll find them. To remove any further dead eggs, kill the lights, move the cave, and vaccuum off the bad eggs once she's located and isolated herself in the cave again.
Keep the temp at 80 and she and her remaining brood will be fine. Once she drops the larvae, she'll molt. If you haven't done so yet, add invert iodine to the tank to help her molt.
The larvae will begin feeding a day after dropping from the female. Larvae don't usually move to get to food so, they could do with 5 feedings a day with a good spread of food. I hit my larvae with ground rabbit pellets and salmon fry feed. This mix is over 65% protein and will grow the larvae out quickly. Once the larvae are mobile, you can feed them the same as you feed the adults. I use a 50:50 mix of rabbit pellets and sinking catfish pellets. If you're only keeping a few crays, you can feed them any commercial sinking food. I have to buy in bulk 50lb bags by the truckload to feed the 200,000 crays I have here.

 

[Newt]

Thanks!

I am adding iodine, one drop per 5 gallons, same as I do in tanks with shrimp.

I have been feeding sinking carnivore pellets and crab bites, placing them just inside the cave entrace, but they are still there in the morning.


I'm not interested in raising the babies, they will most likely be eaten in that tank, since the other occupents are a 16" fire eel, 5" oscar, and 3" salvini. The Cherax is about 6 or so inches right now, hard to tell because her tail is curled up.

 

[Cryptoheros]

Hi,
New to the group.I had a Cherax quadricarinatus that arrived carrying berries also...I ended up raising over 400 of them. One thing i found out though..they are definately cannibalistic little rats!!!