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View Full Version : Marble Crayfish- Marmorkrebs



badflash
02-23-2009, 07:36 PM
These are an interesting breed, sort of a frankenfish. No one knows where they came from, but the conventional wisdom is that they came from an accidental hybridization between two different species of north American crayfish.

Marmorkrebs are the only known species of crayfish that are all female. Each female is identical to the mother and she produces fertile eggs without mating.

Here is what they look like:
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c70/badflash/crays/marble1.jpg

They are non-aggressive for crayfish. Mom does not eat her young and the babies do not cannibalize each other. They are cold hearty and can live under ice. When a female berries, she can have upwards to 300 babies and can do so about every 3 months. Mine seem to live about 2 years. They start reproduction at around 4 months.

They don't get big, maybe 4" but are probably more than big enough to eat. Match that with being able to pack them together without a lot of trouble and these may be a winning combo. I'm thinking a screened bottom to keep the fish and crays apart would work well to co-crop them.

JCO
02-23-2009, 09:07 PM
:o Woa...now that's a post worth considering...do you really think there is enought meat in the tail for them to be worth while to produce for resale as food?

Also, that's a great picture.... :shock:

I figured your good work and the CrayLady deserved a spot of their own. :mrgreen:

jackalope
02-23-2009, 09:33 PM
Cold water, 300 berries every 3 months, non-aggressive, no males to separate, sounds like fish food to me ....... I might have to do a deal for some of these ;).

badflash
02-24-2009, 06:50 AM
A 6 month old 'kreb has as much meat as a normal red swamp cray you find at markets. Never eaten one, so I don't know how they taste, but I imagine they taste fine. I'm still experimenting with what triggers a berry. I'm thinking it is a temperature swing once she's fattened up. There also seems to be a chemical queue that prevents the others from having a berry at the same time. I'm going to try putting one cray to a 10 gallon tank and see if that kicks up production.

JCO
02-25-2009, 02:34 PM
I'm real interested in seeing what you come up with in you investigation of triggering a berry. Keep me uptodate on your progress. I just might be interested in some little ones later on this year.

mommyhen42
03-08-2009, 10:36 PM
I have 3 I got from a guy on ebay, they are about the right size now to start berrying...
I have them each in 10 gal tubs one to a tub, I have a f&d tub over each one that I use only to start lettuce seed, I have left some to get to around 5 inches tall and they look healthy, but I guess the varietys I am planting don't need much in the way of nutrients??? the lettuce is green, a bit spindly due to the filtered light but otherwise quite healthy. I just finally got around to transplanting the larger lettuces into a new riverbed tray system but there is still alot there in that tub that I will want to move around so that I can plant some new seed.
I have one tub that seems to be loosing water and will have to check into that.
Since the tubs are dark and I have a bunch of shelf lava rock in there I am not sure if any have had babies yet, I will have to look and see sooner or later.
I was just planning on using them as fish food, but will have to see how large they really grow to, could be a consideration on raising them for food, I love crawdaddys...

badflash
03-17-2009, 06:00 PM
I noticed my largest 'kreb was being reclusive and trying to escape. Then I noticed her glare glands were in full display. The glare glands are on the tail and produce the glue that holds the eggs to the swimmerlets. The display is a light colored fan pattern. Once you see it in person, you know what it is.

This is a poor picture of a P, clarkii blue with the glare glands starting to show:
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c70/badflash/crays/shesready.jpg

I isolated my wandering female in her own 20 gallon tank, and sure enough, next day she had a tail full of eggs. :)

wolfracer
03-17-2009, 06:56 PM
looks like a good source of fish chow. Nice pics. Where can I find some of these?

badflash
03-18-2009, 05:54 AM
Have you looked in our classified adds section? :D

swamp creek farms
03-18-2011, 02:45 PM
I've had some for about 35 days now, came with eggs. I can't wait for them to hatch, i have warmed the water and watched and watched. Maybe i am too excited. :o

I have two in a 30 gallon tank, i have another tank ready for the young ones. I plan on eating them, or selling them to a fish market, and frozen fish bait. But more on eating them myself. Gimme some of that good old gumbo, go ahead and make it a jumbo-lia !

I cant wait. How long till i can eat some ?

frigginchi
03-19-2011, 03:55 PM
I have a bunch too :)

swamp creek farms
04-04-2011, 08:14 AM
I had one of the adult females die on me. I assume she was molting and got stuck. I watched off and on for a while, figured she knew what she was doing.

drdreww
06-20-2011, 04:11 PM
got this and several others from the bait shop. appears that several different kinds came together.. this look like a young marm? only molted twice

foodchain
10-27-2011, 02:20 PM
I don't know if it will work here or not. Just gonna say that upfront....but when we have a pair of fish that won't spawn, we introduce water from a tank we had some spawning in. The hormone signature in the water, even if a different kind of fish usually does the trick when all else fails. It's kinda my secret weapon to make problematic ones take the plunge. I have roughly 85% success with just this method. In fish, temperature, age, condition of breeders, diet, etc all play major rolls in breeding/spawing.
I did keep the FL blue craws for a while, and I know I had to watch the softness of the water, and sometimes add iodine to help with molting. Not sure if that was just because of my water or what there. When you have extra, I would love to aquire some if you're willing.

Larry Dietz
11-05-2011, 06:23 PM
I know this is an old thread, but...

Anyone have any of these they would be willing to part with? I would love to try raising some.

I love crayfish, especially the tails :)

-Larry

cookie
11-07-2011, 12:38 AM
If these are tasty I would want to track some down as well. Its getting about that time of year its going to be to cold to ship stuff soon.

Shas
12-05-2011, 12:59 AM
I have seen a lot of people raising these critters
but I have yet to hear of anybody eating them.
Who'll go first?

foodchain
12-05-2011, 05:42 AM
I am game. But I gotta get some first. I have tried the red/mud claws from LA, and I have done the prawns with success. But none of these yet.

keith_r
12-05-2011, 06:42 AM
most crayfish in the states need lots of room, or they'll just canablize each other.. i have 2 left from last year out of 4 or 5 dozen, added at different times, but i'm sure the fish ate some of the small ones..
if you try crayfish, use a large shallow container, and provide lots of "hides"

foodchain
12-05-2011, 07:27 AM
PVC pipes and terra cotta pipes make great hides.
I tried breeding the FL blue cray a few years back, and found I could get 5 gallon buckets of broken terra cotta from mom/pop nursery store for about $6/bucket.

keith_r
02-06-2012, 11:50 AM
just got my first marm last week.. it was a freebie that came with my scud order!
we'll see how it does - it's in a 55 gal tank with some rosy red fry, 1 adult rosy red male (protecting some eggs) snails, scuds and daphnia

foodchain
02-06-2012, 12:14 PM
watch the snails....they eat eggs....cray may eat them too.

keith_r
02-06-2012, 01:10 PM
the male does a pretty good job of keeping the snails off,, i help out occasionally.. the cray can't walk upside down on the pot so they're safe from her
i'm hoping to pick up a 120gal glass tank in the next few days.. just gotta figure out what i'm going to do with it..

foodchain
02-06-2012, 01:13 PM
Too bad you are not closer. I have too many tanks taking up space in the garage.
IF the snails get out of hand, put a peice of leaf lettuce on the bottom with a rock. Snails will gravitate to it, lift it out after about 45 minutes to an hour and shake the snails off to the perch. Snails can get out of hand.

keith_r
02-06-2012, 01:54 PM
they're starting to get out of control.. just read that the marms will eat them so thats a good thing.. i just saw one of my papershell crays eating a snail in on of the other tanks..

Bioritize
02-11-2012, 08:32 PM
Anyone eat these things yet? How big do they get? Pictures?

keith_r
02-13-2012, 06:42 AM
i don't think i'll eat them, but use the small ones as feed for my yp/bg or trout when i go that way..to grow out crays, you'll need lots of room.. i put a few dozen in a 110 gallon tank my first year, after 6 months there were 2 left..
i've got probably 2 dozen in an 8' kiddie pool, and could probably do a bunch more in there, but thats where i want to put my fish to grow..

bcotton
02-17-2012, 11:24 AM
I had 3 in an outdoor system which is being taken down... I brought them inside into 3x10 gallon tanks and 2 of 3 have berried in 3-4 days. I guess the temperature change triggered something.


Brian

keith_r
02-17-2012, 11:37 AM
what's the temp in the aquarium?
mine is at 68/69 pretty steady right now, but i could turn the heat up.. mine is only 1.5" long or so.. but it's antennae are a whole lot longer than the papershell crays!

bcotton
02-17-2012, 12:02 PM
room temperature, i am not heating the aquariums at all... We keep the house around 72-74 so the water is probably range 66-70 degrees.. the temp outside had dropped to the 50s before the move.

brian

MagicKushKing
02-26-2013, 09:35 PM
May be an old thread but I wanted to bring it back to life.

I've looked all over the net and haven't found anyone who has personally eaten marbled crayfish, so I may end up being the first.

I just started a 50 gallon tank with ten crays and 15 red Nile tilapia. I'm not surr if they'll play well together, but I figured I would give it a try. I have back up tanks or screens if I end up needing to Seperate them.

Once I have everything set up I'll post a few pictures.

keith_r
02-27-2013, 06:37 AM
i now have a couple hundred marmokrebs.. 3 hatches so far even with some pretty cool water in my basement this winter..
i'm raising them in regular glass fish tanks, if i put smaller ones in, they're going to get eaten by the yellow perch or bluegill, but there will be quite a few left to grow some out.. my first one is probably close to 3 years old and it's at eating size, slow growth in cool waters but they can handle it...
and if any breed in the pool (i put several berried krebs in the pool so far) they will end up feeding the yp and bluegill

bcotton
02-27-2013, 06:39 AM
Hypothesis: If/when the crays can fit in the tilapia's mouth the cray's will be eaten.

brian

keith_r
02-27-2013, 06:40 AM
i had a few smaller tilapia eat the smaller crays (when the tilapia were 3"-4" and on high protein food, but once they get bigger, they have no interest in them

swamp creek farms
02-27-2013, 08:26 AM
so who has made a meal out of these besides your guppies ? ? all of mine died off before i could get em big enough to cook

keith_r
02-27-2013, 11:25 AM
i've eaten plenty of crayfish, but never one of this species.. i imagine they'll be pretty similar to other freshwater crayfish i've eaten.. (great with butter, very mild and slightly sweet)
need a mess of them for a meal, and it's just going to take a while to get enough big enough with my conditions.. if you have warmer water year round, you'll have faster growth
if i can get all 7 of my glass tanks going with a few berried females in each one, i should be able to get enough for a meal for me and the wife in another 2 years or so

swamp creek farms
02-28-2013, 08:18 AM
i did find out they do fight and eat each other, i thought they were veggies only but they get pretty pissed at each other and show down

bcotton
03-04-2013, 07:41 AM
marbles are omnivorous. They will eat snalie and plants and probably anything else they can catch and fit in their mouth. However they are not known for aggression.

I have seen a berrying female (all marbles are are female) get aggressive over a hide but I cant say i have ever seen a fatality.

brian

jackalope
03-07-2013, 08:42 AM
I had them for a while .... definitely not for eating, but just top keep the bottom of the tank clean ..... the Tilapia would eat the smaller ones, so I never had an abundance of them - but since they are illegal in Montana, I sold them off and went back to using snails ..... which provided the tilapia with a lot of protein ;)

tmcmaster
06-14-2013, 07:13 AM
I have several of them in my basement tanks, and had to pull them out and out them in separate 10 gallon tanks to get berries. Once they are big enough to eat, I will be breaking out the drawn butter and will post an update on the flavor profile...

eddiemigue
06-14-2013, 09:21 AM
Hi jackolope, not to hijack the thread, but what kind of snails do you use? I have tilapia as well, and it's always great to add more cleaning and sources of protein.

Larry Dietz
06-18-2013, 08:33 PM
Keith, I don't suppose you would be willing to part with a few of them, would you?

If so, let me know what you would want for some. I wonder if these live through being shipped?

Thanks,
-Larry



i now have a couple hundred marmokrebs.. 3 hatches so far even with some pretty cool water in my basement this winter..
i'm raising them in regular glass fish tanks, if i put smaller ones in, they're going to get eaten by the yellow perch or bluegill, but there will be quite a few left to grow some out.. my first one is probably close to 3 years old and it's at eating size, slow growth in cool waters but they can handle it...
and if any breed in the pool (i put several berried krebs in the pool so far) they will end up feeding the yp and bluegill

keith_r
06-19-2013, 05:18 AM
i don't have the boxing and insulation to ship... but, you can find them on aqaubid.com..
i started with 1 - i got it free with an order of gammarus (scuds) a couple years ago - you can get a better deal on the scuds from JCO...
if you were close i'd gladly give you a few

Larry Dietz
06-19-2013, 08:20 PM
I understand. We are 400+ miles apart, so a bit difficult to just run over :)

-Larry

larrydu
06-20-2013, 04:22 PM
Very informative information about Marble Crayfish- Marmorkrebs for aquaponics systems (http://aquaponicsideasonline.com). The interesting point for me is that they are all females and they lay fertile eggs.

What happen to males over the years??

JCO
06-20-2013, 06:15 PM
No one knows I guess... but here is a quote from Badflash with a possible answer


These are an interesting breed, sort of a frankenfish. No one knows where they came from, but the conventional wisdom is that they came from an accidental hybridization between two different species of north American crayfish.

Marmorkrebs are the only known species of crayfish that are all female. Each female is identical to the mother and she produces fertile eggs without mating. :mrgreen: