Marbled Crayfish Babies & Berried Momma Crayfish

[acea091489]

Please excuse algae, and water stains. : )

For a size reference, these little baby crays are feeding on a algae wafer in the video.



Marbled Crayfish Female # 2 ( due to release her babies any time now).

 

[Fat Homer]

Congrats... but i hope you have a lot of cover for those babies... coz although they don't normally eat their young, coz in my experience casualties do happen without enough cover...

 

[acea091489]

Congrats... but i hope you have a lot of cover for those babies... coz although they don't normally eat their young, coz in my experience casualties do happen without enough cover...

The females have been berried several times already, but this is only the 2nd time I decided to raise the babies.

Normally the babies are kept in the community tank & get eaten within a few seconds of being released.

Once the 2nd female drops the baby crays, I plan on moving the two adults out of that tank and back into the main aquarium. Once the babies put on a little size, I can hopefully move them outside in a couple tubs for the summer.

Last time I raised the crays, I kept the group in a 55g growout tank with tons of stacked pvc pipe caves. It worked well, but trying to do water changes in that tank sucked.

BTW: A little off topic, but cool avatar pic.

 

[Fat Homer]

^ thanks for the comment...

And yeah i can imagine a 55G full of marble crays must have been interesting to clean... Especially trying bot to suck up all the babies as well...


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app

 

[FishFreak95]

Nice. I had 2 generations untill the weird die off.

Sent from my SPH-D600 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App

 

[acea091489]

I will post some update pictures of the baby crays this weekend.

They are all 1/2"+ in size, and growing very fast.

 

[Jrob]

where did you get the females....and do the females need a male to reproduce???

 

[acea091489]

where did you get the females....and do the females need a male to reproduce???

I got all the crays from Lotsoffish on www.aquabid.com. This species is self cloning, so you don't have to worry about needing a male cray in order for them to reproduce.

The marbled crays that I have typically become berried every 2-3 weeks. The smallest one that is currently carrying eggs is around 1.25"+.

BTW: Does anyone know the appropriate size for shipping these crays? I just had another female release 100+ babies, so I need to start selling off the larger baby crays in order to make enough room to growout this next batch.

 

[acea091489]

Oh yeah, I will add some pictures tonight of the crays.

I decided not to worry about moving them outside to the tubs. I prob. started with 200+, and now have 80 or so that are around 1/2"+.

 

[acea091489]

Quick count today was around 80 baby crays. Not sure if you can tell in the pictures, but the baby crayfish now have their marbled pattern.

I will try to upload a video soon of the adult, and her babies.