Oh dear more crayfish

LeilaNami

Arachnoking
Old Timer
Joined
Jun 8, 2006
Messages
2,164
Well, after my beautiful P. clarkii died, we went out and got a couple more crayfish. I hadn't been intending to do so but the LPS received three crayfish that arrived under the name of Assorted Lobster. :sarcasm: So, not sure of the species (though I'm pretty sure they are Procambarus sp.), I managed to ID two females and a male of the same species. We ended up buying a white female (the other had too much shell rot) and the ghost morph male (who was steadily losing legs since the idiot put a 3" cray in with large goldfish). They both molted after a couple days (and the male, now dubbed Mulder, is now a solid bright orange) at home and the female, dubbed Scully, started to steadily kick the butt of the male. After a couple months of territorial disputes, Scully became subdued and secluded herself. Well lo and behold, I was certainly was correct about them being the same species because they got a little frisky and Scully has a shooter marble-sized ball of babies under her tail! I am very excited to have another batch of crayfish babies in my tanks. :love:
 

ShredderEmp

Arachnoprince
Joined
Aug 3, 2012
Messages
1,769
That brings me back to the days when I had crayfish. Truly awesome creatures. I had a P. alleni that I named Una, because she was my first crayfish and was a girl. I kept her in a 20 gallon. I loved her so much. I bred her with a P. clarkii ( I know not to now) which I named Clark and I actually witnessed them getting it on :). That was the funnest pet I ever had. She gave birth to easily over 200 babies. Being my first time breeding crayfish, I didn't know about the best ways to raise crayfish, so I ended up selling 28 for $21.50. Sadly, I only had Clark for a month and he died shortly after the birth of the little guys. Then a few months after I sold the babies, Una died and I was heartbroken. She molted flawlessly 3 times under my care, and during which grew back a claw and antennae. I buried her in my back yard next to Clark that winter, but a raccoon of which I cannot describe with words dug them up :(. I became so sad I became careless with keeping the guppies alive, and long story short, I returned two cichlids that grew a good amount, and that summer, I had to clean out a fish tank filled with dead fish. Horrible thing that happened.

Typing this makes me tear a little, but at the same time makes we want to get back into them. Una sealed my interests in marine biology as a career I hopefully can pursue.

Good luck with the rascals and thanks for the trip down memory lane. :)
 

LeilaNami

Arachnoking
Old Timer
Joined
Jun 8, 2006
Messages
2,164
I'll have pics soon, skullking. :p

Unfortunately there seems to have been a mass die off in the breeder tank :( Not sure why. There's probably only a hand full of babies left alive that we can see. They seemed to just roll less than a day after kicking off. The adult is fine, however. I guess we'll try again and keep the babies in the tank the P. clarkii batch was successfully raised in and move the adults out instead.

Sorry about your crays ShredderEmp. I also had a P. alleni I called Sir George that died recently. I hope you end up keeping more! They have so much personality and it's fun to keep them!
 
Top