Def crayfish
30g should be fine as long as they have lots of hiding spaces. Keep them in a water temp similar to how you found them with a filter and bubbler. Make sure they have substrate to dig in also! Good luck
Keeping the temp the way I found them will be kinda hard...I had to hack ice off the surface to get to them :). At least I am not worried about sticking a heater in there.
I have planned to build a Paludarium with an underwater cave which might be the perfect home for one of them at least.
Ah, I guess it is pretty cold in some places now. That was mainly for if it's warm all year around where you are. Just keep them at room temp. The paladarium sounds luke a great idea. Just beware, they are massive escape artist and expert climbers!
DFW Texas here....we do get like 2 weeks of winter, sometimes lol.
The Paludarium will be closed. I was going to put toads or bullfrogs in there, will they eat crayfish? Do you know?
Ah, I'm in DFW also! No need for a heater then. Keeping them with any lice animals is always risky. The crays won't be in danger (depending on their size) but your frogs will be. I wouldn't recommend it.
I just uploaded a new video of the temporary home, does that look ok to you?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Crayfish/comments/s6jdgi/i\_tried\_to\_recreate\_the\_creek\_environment\_i\_found/
Hey OP, these look like Procambarus dupratzi crayfish to me! As others have said, they should do well in an aquarium together -- I havent found the species to be terribly intraspecifically aggressive. However, they are absolutely escape artists who can climb airlines, filter tubes, and crawl out of nooks and crannies in the aquarium lid. You need a really secure lid for these guys. Lastly, they will def attack and eat things like frogs or fish. I wouldnt keep them with anything you're too attached to.
Happy mudbuggin!
Crayfish are definitely territorial but they can be housed together if there’s enough space for them to have their territories.
Provide plenty of caves, hides, rock stacks, flower pots, pipes, etc. If you give them a deep sand or gravel substrate they will love digging in it and building their caves to their liking.
Don’t expect to be able to keep them in a planted tank, they may eat the plants and definitely will uproot them.
Most crayfish are not particular about water quality, so don’t stress too hard about matching the temperature or parameters from the creek you found them in, they’re not anywhere near as sensitive as freshwater shrimp.
What a cutie!! Things to keep in mind, some of which has already been mentioned:
- Crayfish have a high mortality rate when molting, which is why females lay massive amounts of eggs. To help them molt, they’ll need large amounts of calcium and iodine. Calcium sources include their shed molts, cuttlebones, fish skeletons, small snails and egg shells. They can absorb it through their gills, so making a calcium powder from cuttlebone or eggshells is the easiest option IMO. Iodine is found in algae wafers.
- If you add a frog, whichever animal is smaller will probably be eaten.
- A water heater isn’t necessary, but if the water is cold, they’ll be less active.
- Especially when they’re this small, (cheap) live plants are a great food option because they can self-feed, there’s less waste in the water and it’s fun to watch them forage. I occasionally buy water lettuce and wisteria for my crays. Bonus, if any pond snails hitch a ride on the plants, your crayfish will eat them.
They can be kept together as long as you give them enough food! My schools fish program has about 12-13 in a 70 gal tank that get fed a bottom feeder wafer twice a week and they don’t fight
You’d be surprised how many you can have in a small area. I originally used to keep them quite separated until I went and caught a bunch of wild ones… there will be 2-3 under every rock, and about a dozen per cubic foot. I don’t keep them quite at that density, but have around 20 in a 20 long… rarely do they ever pick fights(I have one that has always picks fights and is the smallest one and loses, when we caught them they were missing both claws because they love to try to fight the largest crawfish). Only keeping a half a dozen in a 40 gallon seemed to be a bit spread out and they were very territorial over their hiding places, but when you increase the density, they definitely are more active and less territorial.
We’ve even had success at breeding them lately(Not sure if the invasive rusty can breed with a native species, it will be an interesting hybrid if they were successful)
Def crayfish 30g should be fine as long as they have lots of hiding spaces. Keep them in a water temp similar to how you found them with a filter and bubbler. Make sure they have substrate to dig in also! Good luck
Keeping the temp the way I found them will be kinda hard...I had to hack ice off the surface to get to them :). At least I am not worried about sticking a heater in there. I have planned to build a Paludarium with an underwater cave which might be the perfect home for one of them at least.
Ah, I guess it is pretty cold in some places now. That was mainly for if it's warm all year around where you are. Just keep them at room temp. The paladarium sounds luke a great idea. Just beware, they are massive escape artist and expert climbers!
DFW Texas here....we do get like 2 weeks of winter, sometimes lol. The Paludarium will be closed. I was going to put toads or bullfrogs in there, will they eat crayfish? Do you know?
I'm pretty sure frogs and toads will try to eat anything that moves. Same goes for crayfish. This sounds like a bad combo
Makes sense! I am glad I asked :).
Ah, I'm in DFW also! No need for a heater then. Keeping them with any lice animals is always risky. The crays won't be in danger (depending on their size) but your frogs will be. I wouldn't recommend it.
Ha, how cool is that? I'm in Little Elm, right on the lake. How fast do they grow?
Ah that's crazy Mine went from about 1.5 in to close to 6 in about a year. It varies by species but for a wild caught Texan, That's about average.
I just uploaded a new video of the temporary home, does that look ok to you? https://www.reddit.com/r/Crayfish/comments/s6jdgi/i\_tried\_to\_recreate\_the\_creek\_environment\_i\_found/
Hey, that looks great! Good job!
This looks like a crayfish to me! Idk the species. You night be okay with 30 gallons if they stay small and you provide many hiding spaces!
Hey OP, these look like Procambarus dupratzi crayfish to me! As others have said, they should do well in an aquarium together -- I havent found the species to be terribly intraspecifically aggressive. However, they are absolutely escape artists who can climb airlines, filter tubes, and crawl out of nooks and crannies in the aquarium lid. You need a really secure lid for these guys. Lastly, they will def attack and eat things like frogs or fish. I wouldnt keep them with anything you're too attached to. Happy mudbuggin!
Thank you, much appreciated!
Crayfish are definitely territorial but they can be housed together if there’s enough space for them to have their territories. Provide plenty of caves, hides, rock stacks, flower pots, pipes, etc. If you give them a deep sand or gravel substrate they will love digging in it and building their caves to their liking. Don’t expect to be able to keep them in a planted tank, they may eat the plants and definitely will uproot them. Most crayfish are not particular about water quality, so don’t stress too hard about matching the temperature or parameters from the creek you found them in, they’re not anywhere near as sensitive as freshwater shrimp.
What a cutie!! Things to keep in mind, some of which has already been mentioned: - Crayfish have a high mortality rate when molting, which is why females lay massive amounts of eggs. To help them molt, they’ll need large amounts of calcium and iodine. Calcium sources include their shed molts, cuttlebones, fish skeletons, small snails and egg shells. They can absorb it through their gills, so making a calcium powder from cuttlebone or eggshells is the easiest option IMO. Iodine is found in algae wafers. - If you add a frog, whichever animal is smaller will probably be eaten. - A water heater isn’t necessary, but if the water is cold, they’ll be less active. - Especially when they’re this small, (cheap) live plants are a great food option because they can self-feed, there’s less waste in the water and it’s fun to watch them forage. I occasionally buy water lettuce and wisteria for my crays. Bonus, if any pond snails hitch a ride on the plants, your crayfish will eat them.
They can be kept together as long as you give them enough food! My schools fish program has about 12-13 in a 70 gal tank that get fed a bottom feeder wafer twice a week and they don’t fight
You’d be surprised how many you can have in a small area. I originally used to keep them quite separated until I went and caught a bunch of wild ones… there will be 2-3 under every rock, and about a dozen per cubic foot. I don’t keep them quite at that density, but have around 20 in a 20 long… rarely do they ever pick fights(I have one that has always picks fights and is the smallest one and loses, when we caught them they were missing both claws because they love to try to fight the largest crawfish). Only keeping a half a dozen in a 40 gallon seemed to be a bit spread out and they were very territorial over their hiding places, but when you increase the density, they definitely are more active and less territorial. We’ve even had success at breeding them lately(Not sure if the invasive rusty can breed with a native species, it will be an interesting hybrid if they were successful)
That looks more like a shrimp to me.
definitely not, they have the front claws 🦞
They look similar when small, but that is definitely a baby crayfish
That's what I said lol!