So, it’s been forever since I’ve been here, and even longer since I’ve posted. I decided to come back and introduce my newest baby, a white crayfish I named Ivory. :3 I don’t know the sex, but I’ve been assuming female— I’d love to know the best way to sex a crayfish, if I have to pick her up I don’t think that’d be a problem because she’s pretty chill. Anyway! She’s in a 10-gallon all by herself, the last snail that had been in the tank before is in another tank, I didn’t want it to get eaten in case... y’know, crayfish do that kind of thing. I know crabs do, at least. Here she is. She’s been having fun just traipsing around and feeling stuff with her feet. She’s adorable.
Pretty! Adult crays can be sexed - they look different from below. I'm not sure on the specifics, but I'm sure google could find you some reference pics to use!
She's beautiful!!! I've been wanting to make a 10 gallon build with a blue one for a while now. Might be getting very close. I'll be keeping an eye on this thread.
flip the cray upside down. look at joint the tail and abdomen meet. where the legs and swimmerets also meet. if there is a set of claspers(looks like dwarfed legs tucked under pointing to the head) then it a male, if there are only swimmerets then legs, then it is a female. I have 2 females and 1 male in a 10g that I'm breeding.
Yes, it is a successful setup. the crayfish are large now(2.5'' to 3.5"),im going to up the number to a dozen small clay pots to make hidey holes, lots of live plants(baby's tears; I think) and live food (tubifex worms) IMG_20180308_2138154 by Kasshan posted Mar 9, 2018 at 12:18 AM IMG_20180308_2354092 by Kasshan posted Mar 9, 2018 at 12:18 AM Female. large swimmerets, and no claspers at joint of abdomen/tail IMG_20180308_2356379 by Kasshan posted Mar 9, 2018 at 12:18 AM Male. Small swimmerets, and large set of claspers at joint of abdomen/tail IMG_20180308_2350149 by Kasshan posted Mar 9, 2018 at 12:18 AM I snipped the top claws off with a very sharp pair of wire cutter to prevent them from killing each other since I want them to breed.
That may be why it's working for you and they're not cannibalistic - they can't pinch each other. So maybe other people shouldn't try this because it wouldn't work without removing their weapons.
Oh. You had me excited thinking I could maybe keep two females in my future 10 gallon build. I'd rather not remove body parts, but to each their own. Do you see any additional signs of stress from not being able to defend themselves?
an obvious conclusion. they carry on as normal and are healthy, except scuffles will only just be scuffles now; not deadly. since I want to minimize risk in a breeding project. I had two white crayfish females two years ago in a 30g (claws/weapons intact) with platies and a JD for about a year without incidence (but this example is more a one-off and an uncharacteristically peaceful scenario for clarkiis), I had loads of hidey holes for everyone. I gave up vanilla crays because finding a male was impossible in my local area, and I had to make room for my EBJD project. but I am sure if the females were breeding, they wouldve turn murderous instead of bluffing with claws up only. I think my two females were not aggressive because they were virgin and had no need for extreme deadly territorial conflicts. Red Swamp Crayfish (Procambarus clarkii), which is what I believe Petco's "vanilla lobster" is, is a bit beastly. ive kept numerous crayfish in the past, and the first was a wild red clarkii my exgf found on the lawn somehow that appeared out of no where. it was berried and in her ignorance scraped the eggs off thinking it was something else. that crayfish hated ppl and would kill anything in its tank. I did have a prolific marbled crayfish colony in a 40g and with little incidence, however, that species is docile in comparison, I would not trust a berried clarkii especially when they get bigger. anytime you are keeping more than one cray there is an element risk and luck as with many other things in the hobby
Yes, but I think it needed to be said so some people reading this thread don't think it'll always work out. It's easy to miss a line in the middle of a long post.
Well, I cleaned quite a lot today and didn’t think about having to grab my crustacean child to look underneath. BUT, she did do this weird thing by trying to climb up the glass, and I got a video of it because she stayed there for a minute. I’m going to look it up myself, but for anyone else with a keen eye, here’s a couple of screenshots of what she was doing. That last one is before she went back to just going about her business. XD
Update: I looked at quite a lot of reference pictures of crayfish (my mind is strange in that I have to see the same thing multiple times before it clicks) and I’ve determined she’s female, like I thought! If I’m wrong, though, someone please correct me.
then it must be a eunuch, no, no, no, its a girl 100%. lol once a crayfish goes from micro to macro at about an inch one can easily tell gender.
I meant to post here sooner with a picture of Ivory’s tank, but some things happened. I have a picture now, though! Don’t worry about the slight blurriness of the water, I just removed the last few live plants from the tank (Ivory hasn’t eaten any of them YET, but I just want to be sure), put in a couple of new decorations, and did a small water change. The sand I have is nice, it just tends to get kicked up easily. Ivory has five places to hide— I’ve had that big log thing since I got my first Betta years ago, and I thought it’d be perfect. The two glow-caves, the skull, and the “broken” pot in the back are good hiding places. And there’s a single fake plant, because that’s the only one I ever bought... I’ll probably go get a couple more soon to make sure the tank doesn’t look bare. And here is my crustacean child, questioning what I’m doing taking pictures of her. XD
Update: Ivory molted! I don’t know if it happened last night after I went to bed or early this morning, but her old shell is sitting outside her log. She’s inside the log just chilling, but there’s no way for me to get a good picture of her. I did get a picture of the old shell, before she starts eating it.
