Crawdad Care

[The Masked Shadow]

Hi guys, just wanted to say, If you look in KelberiFishLover19 , he has a 20 gallon with a crawdad, goldfish, and swordtails. Thinking of getting something like a Powder Blue Dwarf Gourami, and 5 Bloodfin Tetras along with a wild-caught cray. Maybe instead of gourami, a Twisty-tailed Goldfish. ORRRRv(I know ) mosquito fish. What do yall think?

 

[Magnus_Bane]

Hi guys, just wanted to say, If you look in KelberiFishLover19 , he has a 20 gallon with a crawdad, goldfish, and swordtails. Thinking of getting something like a Powder Blue Dwarf Gourami, and 5 Bloodfin Tetras along with a wild-caught cray. Maybe instead of gourami, a Twisty-tailed Goldfish. ORRRRv(I know ) mosquito fish. What do yall think?

Personally I would stick with just the crawdad only in that tank. Crawdads are all opportunistic hunters and tend to be most active at night when most fish sleep. I've kept them before and while being easy to take care of they still will try to hunt when the opportunity arises.

As for care I would recommend decor like rocks and driftwood along with a 3-4in deep substrate as they love to burrow under decor. A 17g should be fine for tank size as they tend to not move around much. For food they will eat plants such as cucumber, zucchini and broccoli that has been blanched in order to sink along with meats such as chicken, beef, fish, eggs, clams, calamari and other shellfish. Least to say they aren't picky about what they eat. I do recommend adding in a crushed egg shell once a month to help boost their calcium intake and to help with molting, just remember to vacuum out any left over egg shell out after 2 days as to not dirty the water too much and to give the tank a 20-30% waterchange afterwards. Oh also with any left over molt in the tank after the crawdad sheds, just leave it in there, the crawdad will eat it and recycle the calcium it used up.

Hope this helps some.

Oh btw almost forgot. Don't be surprised when your crawdad turns blue after a while. Wild crawdads are reddish brown due to the mud they filter feed on and once that mud has gone through their system they will slowly turn blue as they are no longer ingesting any mud. Kind of like how flamingoes turn pink after eating krill, but if a flamingo is not fed krill it'll remain white.

 

[The Masked Shadow]

That is so helpful!!!! So a crawdad and only a crawdad in that tank. If I have a sponge filter in the water, do I have to make it have a perch outside of the water? Can I get rocks from slow-moving creeks and have them be dryed out for a while? Can I fo the same with driftwood. And is keeping a crawdad just like keeping a fish? Thats all my questions! Have a good one

 

[Magnus_Bane]

That is so helpful!!!! So a crawdad and only a crawdad in that tank. If I have a sponge filter in the water, do I have to make it have a perch outside of the water? Can I get rocks from slow-moving creeks and have them be dryed out for a while? Can I fo the same with driftwood. And is keeping a crawdad just like keeping a fish? Thats all my questions! Have a good one

A crawdad is fully aquatic unlike most crabs so no it doesn't need to leave the water. As for treating random rocks ya find just boil em and they should be fine, oh also pour some vinegar on em just to check if they will dissolve or not. Of the rock fizzes like pop when vinegar is add on top it's no good, just do the vinegar test before boiling em, it also only takes maybe 10-15 mins of boiling to be safe of parasites and other stuff. As for drift wood ya can boil that as well of it's small enough, just don't add any that still has bark on it as all that will do is rot and decay over time.

Also when it comes to feeding you can technically feed it by hand with a pair of tongs or needle nose plyers. Just don't get your hands too close or you'll get pinched.

 

[The Masked Shadow]

Hmm. Thanks!

 

[The Masked Shadow]

Any other info u can give me?

 

[Magnus_Bane]

Any other info u can give me?

No need for a heater in the tank since they are a cold water specie. They can grow upto 6in long. You can also feed em sinking pellets if ya want, just aim em toward it's den/burrow. If ya want more then one you'll need to get a bigger tank, roughly 55g for 3 of em. If ya get more then 1 expect fighting and lose of limbs, no need to worry if it loses a limb or 2 as it'll grow em back in the next molt.

 

[The Masked Shadow]

Okee. Thanks

 

[qldmick]

Forget about the vinegar test, if its alkaline (fizzes), that's only beneficial to crayfish tanks, I've just swapped over to coral sand as my pH wasn't high enough and had molting issues.
Here's my tank now, it has so many hides and fake plants in their as I've had some cannibalism during molts (theirs 4 clay logs, 4 real wood logs and 8 silk plants).

 

[Hendre]

am I being shunned or something?

No, not everyone has as much time as you. Sometimes it takes hours, days or even weeks for a good reply to come in.

Good advice in the thread.