Orange P. Clarkii

[badflash]

This is an orange morph of the red swamp crayfish with some young'ns on her tail:

I'm glad you had some info on them...I looked high and low and couldn't come up with anything that actually had anything to do with them. There is so much misinformation about crayfish on the net, its crazy. One post I saw, this person stated that all crayfish came from Australian..what a dum--ss

[badflash]

Most of the world has crayfish, but areas where prawns are you won't find them. Prawns can smell a molting crayfish a long way off. They use those long arms to fish out the helpless bugger. They can't compete.

[JeffW]

Is prawn a shrimp..I did not know shrimp ate crayfish

We call em crayfish some call em crawfish is this a breed of species?

[badflash]

A prawn is a shrimp. Prawn are predators and eat most anything they can catch. There are many species of prawns, just like crayfish. The type I've raised are M. rosenbergii. They are the most common ones bred in the US. There are also saltwater varieties, like the tiger shrimp.

Because they fill the same niche as the crayfish, they are natural enemies. Fortunately for the crayfish, they need warm water to survive, so their northern range is limited to the deep south. They also require saltwater for the fry to survive, so they don't live far from the coast unless farmed.

There is one species that can reproduce in fresh water. that is M. amazonicum, the Amazon River Prawn. Here is a pic. I was not successful at breeding them. I had no males.

[mommyhen42]

Any info on how to successfully breed these without using your pond???
I have several normally colored ones that I put into one of the ponds in my foyer area... I had a few walkabouts in the begining but most eventually stayed. Hoping they will reproduce in the rocks I put in there, but I am guessing I will have to get that Bluegill out first, he even ate the mosquito fish that were in there!

Loves to pack with my koi, I guess he thinks he is a koi...LOL

[badflash]

If you mean crayfish, they breed easily, but unpredictably in captivity. The wild reds are the easiest. The odd colors like blue, red and white are a lot trickier.

Set up a couple of 20 gallon tanks with 1 male and 3 females and lots of hides in one tank. Put a bunch of snails in the other tank to maintain the cycle. PVC pipes cut to size work well for hides. Set lighting for no more than 6 hours a day, but give them lighting. Keep the tank cool, like in the 60's for a month and feed sparingly. Then bring water temps up to the mid 70's and set the lighting to 12 hours a day.

Once you have females with a berry, remove the male. When the female drops the babies, remove her too. You can get 2 to 3 berries a year with 100+ babies each time. Grow-out can be challenging as the babies can be cannibals.

[mommyhen42]

sounds interesting... perhaps I will pull some from the pond or get some more when the start showing up at the wholesaler I get crickets and mealworms from...
They should be coming in around May or June
Last year, I had a walkabout that was female, I put her in a tank by herself and she did berry, but I made the mistake of leaving her in the tank, no wonder there wernt any babies later...

[badflash]

Just an update. The babies from the hatch are now adults and I recently aquired a white albino P. clarkii. He is now in the proper form for mating and hopefully will give me some tangerine babies:


Yep, crayfish mate missionary style. Due to their armor, that is the only way that can work