40 crayfish breeder

[TheWalkman]

I picked up a 40 gallon breeder from petsco today for $50. It works out because I was kicking around the idea of breeding marbled crayfish to feed to my Fahaka puffer.
My plan is to start with 3 marbled crayfish plus have some danios up top for some movement. Thinking black substrate with blue background. With decor from the boxes of stuff I have. Maybe a few hardy live plants since the tank gets an hour or 2 of sunlight from a window.
I will be building my own stand next weekend. Need to pick up a sponge filter to start running in my main tank. Plus find a suitable lid.

 

[BigManAquatics]

Sounds like a fun project! I like crayfish. Even if just to feed something else.

 

[TheWalkman]

Made some progress getting the tank ready.
bought the spongefilters, substrate, and ordered the lid. Brought home decorations and rocks so I can start decorating.
built my stand and painted this weekend. Still need to apply a polyurethane coat. And learn how to build cabinet doors but that will be done at a later date.

 

[FishBoy101]

Following this! This sounds very interesting

 

[TheWalkman]

Need your guys opinion
I’m using black gravel for the tank.
should I go with a black background or a blue background?
my other tank in the room has the blue background.
and the background I bought is reversible.
Well after moving paintings several times I figured out the finale placement of the stand. I’ll end up replacing the smaller painting with a larger one or do a shelf with a plant on it.

 

[FishBoy101]

I feel like black will stand out more, and blue may be different in a bad way. Just my 2 cents. Good luck!

 

[TheWalkman]

Slowly making progress after work this week.
got the background on and the substrate in tonight. I need to probably get another 10 pounds of substrate just so the tank has more depth.
Plus I got some driftwood soaking so I can try different layouts this week.
doubt I’ll put a lot of plants in this tank minus some floating ones since the cray fish will probably rip them out.

 

[Kribensis27]

Wow, sounds cool! Following this thread as well.

 

[TheWalkman]

Got my sponge filters plumbed I might have to change it. I ended up siting things up to keep it organized but I learned from another tank and did it all while against the wall so I can change things in the future if needed.
threw Some decorations in the tank so find the filters and start to get an idea. There’s some things in my other tanks I might steal for this one.
unfortunately I’ll be to busy this weekend to run to my LFS to pick up my top and more decorations. But I will have time to fill the tank up and get the cycle going.
So I’m going to be running a 24” fluval 3.0 for a light on this tank. But I had it laying around collecting dust. So I’ll use it because it’s free and I can adjust the brightness down.

 

[YellowGuppy]

That's a fancy lookin' meat farm!

 

[TheWalkman]

I finally got my fancy meat farm filled with water tonight. My weekend was busier then I wanted.
But the tank is filled and filters are going! I added a few pieces of decor and a piece of drift wood from another tank so hopefully my cycle goes quick.
I still want to check the lfs for some different pieces of driftwood or rocks. And I have a cool piece of cholla soaking tray refuses to sink. And I need to learn to take better pictures with outa reflection.
Oops forgot the pictures

 

[YellowGuppy]

And I need to learn to take better pictures with outa reflection.

I've found tank lights ON and room lights OFF gets things looking pretty good.

 

[TheWalkman]

I've found tank lights ON and room lights OFF gets things looking pretty good.
View attachment 759083

Great picture and tank. what floating plant do you have in there?
my tank light is like 1/4 of an inch shy of fitting on the tank with out a lid. Sigh but I pick it up this weekend

 

[YellowGuppy]

Thank you! It's frogbit. Couldn't keep it alive until I bought some Thrive ferts, and now I'm selling it by the handful every week!

 

[TheWalkman]

Thank you! It's frogbit. Couldn't keep it alive until I bought some Thrive ferts, and now I'm selling it by the handful every week!

Do you ship it at all? I was thinking about doing floating plants in this tank and frogbit was high on the list.

 

[YellowGuppy]

I'm located in Canada, so shipping to your location would be a nightmare of an expense! I suspect you'd be able to find someone locally, though. I'd hate for you to drop like $50 on shipping for $10 worth of plants, assuming they'd make it out of the country without freezing!

 

[TheWalkman]

Aah I didn’t check your location YellowGuppy until after I asked. Yeah that would be a nightmare I can get it locally just preferred giving my dollars to a member.

 

[YellowGuppy]

Aah I didn’t check your location YellowGuppy until after I asked. Yeah that would be a nightmare I can get it locally just preferred giving my dollars to a member.

Don't get me wrong - I'd love your dollars! But Canada Post would walk away with most of them!

 

[TheWalkman]

Finally was able to pick up my lid today. So I was finally able to add the light!
I also picked up some frogbit for the tank.
The tank is sitting about 68 so it’s going to perfect for the crayfish

 

[TheWalkman]

Life’s been so busy with work and with the fun process of cycling a tank there hasn’t been much to update.
but the cycle is complete. I did cheat a little by adding some bottled bacteria and pulling a piece of driftwood and a few decorations out of an established tank.
And I finally ordered my crayfish but due to their shipping schedule they probably won’t get shipped until next week. Slow but steady progress at least.

 

[TheWalkman]

Well I messed up my order with the crayfish and accidentally ordered 1 grade b juvenile instead of the three adults as I intended.
but at least I finally have a crayfish in the tank and she looks fine.

 

[TheWalkman]

In positive news after thinking my poor crayfish was dying. She was constantly hiding, not coming out for food often. I checked on her today and when I pulled her hide up she was curled up with eggs berried on her. So that’s exciting I feel bad for disturbing her now.
it was so unexpected that I didn’t even have my phone on me to get pictures.

 

[TheWalkman]

So finally spotted baby crayfish in the tank.
the mom came out of hiding 3 weeks ago with no eggs. And I didn’t spot any babies so I thought they died. I’ve been busy so I’ve just been plopping food in the tank with out much thought. But then I noticed babies tonight. I quickly counted about 10 babies but the lights were turning off. Im so stoked right now