Breeding Crayfish

[JeanieV]

I have about 30 baby crayfish and was wondering at what age they start breeding? (The mama crayfish laid her eggs the first time after being by herself after 2 months, so I am curious to see how young they start breeding and if I should be concerned any time soon).

Any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated, because I have not found one aquarium store that knows anything about crayfish- I even had the store we purchased them from tell me that if there was not a male in the tank after the eggs appeared that they would die- not true - she ended up having about 200 babies!

[jman]

Sexing Crayfish
Sexing crayfish isn't always easy. The genital openings are located in different places on the body depending on whether it's a male or a female. Males have their genital openings behind/under their posterior pair of legs. Females have their genital openings under the third pair of legs counted from the posterior. However, many individuals have a male as well as a female genital opening, making the sexing much more complicated. But these are always either male or female; usually male but you can't be sure.

Mating and egg carrying
In aquariums, spawning is possible any time of year. The male makes a little sperm packet and places it on the female's stomach. The female then spawns her eggs, passing them through the sperm packet so that the eggs get fertilized. It is not uncommon for the female to lose a claw during this process. She then places the eggs under her tail where they will be kept until they are ready to be released. How long this will be depends on the water temperature and the species, but it will be at least 4 weeks. A lot of other factors can also affect the length of the egg carrying period, such as water quality, and food supply and quality. The mother will watch over the young for a short time after birth.

Fry
The fry are very small when they are born but are fully developed miniature crayfish. Fry are usually detritus feeders, which means that they will feed on any decomposing plant parts and food leftovers they can find while scouring the bottom. Vegetable food is preferred and they can be fed boiled lettuce leaves that are left to decay in the aquarium. Be aware of the water quality. Fry are often very cannibalistic and a large aquarium is required if you want a higher number of fry to survive. Sorting fry for size may help the survival rate.

Breeding
Now you know about their breeding behaviour and how to raise the fry, but how can you get them to breed in the first place? Well, first of all you have to give them the right environment and good food to get them in a condition in which they can spawn. Some species also need different triggers to breed. These triggers may be a change in the amount of light and number of light hours, a change in temperature, change of circulation, etc.

Feeding
Crayfish usually accept most kinds of food, and I would recommend feeding them a diet based on boiled lettuce, sinking pellets, shrimps, and once or week or so, fish meat. This will get them in good condition and help the female survive the spawning period since she usually doesn't eat while she is carrying eggs.

Housing/environment
Many crayfish species can be kept in relatively small aquariums, but I recommend using larger aquariums since this lowers the pressure on the females by the males. The aquarium should be decorated so that a lot of hiding places of suitable size are provided. Hiding places can be created using rocks, roots, flowerpots, coconuts, PVC pipes, and so on. It's important that there is at least one, and preferably several hiding places for each crayfish.

i found this if you already haven't

[Drumachine09]

Ive only breed crayfish three or four times, but usually about after 4 to 5 months in the crayfish i hade experiance with. I was just using common crayfish i caught at a lake, made me some babies, shortly followed by some money, cause i sold them to the bait shack at half price of what they pay for at the big companies. It might be different if you are trying to breed the cobalt blue type, those are awesome.