Wild Caught Crays Breeding?

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Polypterus
MFK Member
Sep 25, 2008
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chino hills, california
My son and my nephew caught some crays a few months ago and now they "got bizzay" The smaller of the two was red when the boys caught him but since has molted and is now blue?
Ever here of that?
Also, they mated, missionary(seriously:naughty:) and the female had eggs under her tail.
What do I do now?
How long?
Is this a common thing to have wild caught crays do?

Sorry about the bad cell fone photos.

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Water hardness can have an affect on shell color. Maybe other things too. Not many tests done out there around it yet. In Marbled crays, blue shells is a sign of extremely soft water, which generally isn't a good environment for them to live in (can lead to problems molting). I'd probably do a hardness test (Kh) to see if you're really low. Crays generally do well with around 200ppm (or around 10 degrees hardness). If it's really low, you might look into getting some Kent's Liquid Calcium (usually used for reef tanks). I add 2 drops of that to my 20g cray tank twice per week to bring the hardness up. At that ratio, the $8 bottle will likely last me more than a year.

Grats on them berrying. :) Eggs will likely hatch within the month. The young will probably cling to mom for the first week or two, after that they will drop off. Should be able to get by feeding them the same things the parents eat. The parents are likely to eat the young once they drop off of mom. If you want them to survive, your best bet is to separate them.
 
I have a friend that caught 2 blue crays that mated almost immediatly after putting them in his tank... said hes got like 30 babies now... but he wasnt specific as to the position :ROFL:
 
Awesome info Chrisplosion.
I have a ton of sand stone and lime stone in the tank they are in. The hardness is over 200ppm. The ph is 7.8-8.0 and I dont heat the tank...temp is about 72ºF.
 
Erm what if I just use Singapore's Tap water? Is it okay? Cause 1 of my crayfish has molted twice 2 weeks ago. Till now it has not molted, size about 3 inch. And my smaller crayfish(2 inch) hasn't molted once for about 3 weeks
 
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