Marmokrebs/crayfish/crawfish

[flyingmonkeypoop]

As I was feeding my little marmokreb crayfish I was realizing I still don't see them as often as I thought I would. A few years back before they became popular I managed to get 3 of them. For those that don't know what they are, they are also known as the marbled crayfish. They are a self cloning species meaning they are all female and will berry up then have babies, all alone. I lost one of the originals and kept the other two which in turn bred like crazy. They ate the flake food plus I gave them green beans, blood worms, and those little frozen shrimp. When I switched over to saltwater I gave them to a good friend from work who bred them for awhile and used them as feeders for some other fish he had. Last Christmas I got a little fluval chi aquarium (5.5 gallon) with some platys in it but nothing else to keep it clean. I had some MTS (malaysian trumpet snails) but it wasn't enough so I got a little fresh hatched marmokreb from my old coworker. She grew like crazy even through the first 2 moves but when I moved back home I think it was the combo of moving stress, different water type, and no more supplemental food is what slowed her down. She just molted last night after I got her more snails and some brine shrimp and she is at the size to start berrying up so I hope to have babies soon. This coming summer I plan to try to keep a couple in the horse trough to see how they would do with the algea and snails.

Does anyone else have any crayfish? Any cool pics/stories?

 

[mandelyn]

I have a Florida Blue crayfish that lives with a pair of goldfish in a 70 gallon tank. They're not ideal tank mates, so I'm juggling ammonia levels and temperatures to please both. The result is super clean water and gold fish trying to spawn frequently while growing quickly. I would think if the gold fish were successful, the crayfish would be eating the eggs. I haven't seen any little gold fish, and the temp change and crayfish were introduced about 3 months ago.

It's nice to see something utilizing all the caves and rock, the crayfish really gets around. He/she also isn't as spooky as when it first got here... used to hide, and dash away high speed when you flipped a light on or walked past. So apparently, they have a capacity to learn something about their environment.

Before this I had 2 Pacu, who grew to 10 inches each and I passed them on to a friend that started a South American tank with 125 gallons. Before that I did the African Cichlid thing... those were prolific. Babies everywhere, all the time! The water where we lived was just perfect though, no additives or continual testing needed.

I thought about setting up the goldfish in a spawning tank since I know I do have a boy and girl, but I don't need any more and we don't have a pond to set them up in.

Have been toying with the idea of Discus, but the crayfish would nip them same as it occasionally nips a curious goldfish that comes in too close. We bought the crayfish on a whim, after watching him snatch a guppy in the tank he was in. I didn't know they could hunt, I thought they just scavenged.

 

[yinepu]

I used to raise them..
finally gave the last of them away about a year ago... never thought about putting them in the horse trough.. hmmm... now you have me wondering...

 

[flyingmonkeypoop]

My marmokreb doesnt even really eat dead fish like some have. I had a pair of the white crayfish for awhile and they grabbed any fish they could get so they had to go. I doubt they would survive our cold winters but we keep de-icers in the trough so they wouldnt freeze too bad. I know those darn convict cichlids can survive the winters in frozen ponds up here like the goldfish and still breed, they are impossible to get rid of.
When I got my first marmokrebs they were in a tank with a pair of very prolific fire mouth cichlids and they all did fine together.

 

[fenikkusu]

I have marmokrebs specifically, I don't think they could take water much below 60...for that matter if the trough is in the sun I would think they could overheat, but it wouldn't be hard to fish them out in the fall and house them indoors in the winters, and maybe for some portion of the summer. I would also add a cut piece of PVC pipe in the bottom of the trough. I have 3 in a 10 gallon tank sitting on the kitchen counter and out of direct sunlight. The tank has algae on everything and the girls are pretty happy...and mine are not interested in blood worms or other food and only go after the algae wafers and still the tank is growing algae faster than they can clean it up! Also the new word on the street is that the shrimp (at least off the other coast (The Atlantic)) is affected with with a new strange white spot disease. It appears fungal. they say it is harmless to humans (not entirely sure I trust that) but also they say it is deadly to crays of all sorts. So fish keepers are no longer feeding their crays any foods containing krill, shrimp, and other similar organisms even in pellet form to prevent the disease from infecting and killing their crays! It's a shame to me, mine were enjoying those carnivore pellets that had shrimp as an ingredient! I hope yours are doing well, and though I think your idea is absolutely and brilliantly intelligent, I would love to hear an update on your success because I think success in this will depend on Not frying them in the sun, Not freezing them in the winters, and definitely depend on what sorts of numbers you may need to take care of the algae...but like I said you are so smart to seek out a natural and beneficial solution. So let us know if you tried it after all and what kind of success or not that you experienced. It may help others. Remember its all basically a science experiment and in such failures are nearly as important as successes so that we can work toward fine tuning things and moving toward success...so let us know your results. I doubt that other crays would have a decent chance of working because they don't reproduce generally as fast as marmokrebs...so I think you're definitely on the right track here!