How to raise crayfish?

popytoys said:

Hi, my son just won a crayfish from his class. I would like to ask how to raise it?

- does it need a lot water?
- what about water parameter such as temp, Tds, ph, gh, kh?
- what does it eat?

Thank you for your help.

Bill

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Assuming it's just a common cray fish like P Clarkii, P Allenii, or self-Cloning.
Those are pretty easy to keep:
Start with a 10 gallon with a small hang on back filter. Fully submerged, no need for out of water space. They are fully aquatic that can survive outside of water for a while, but it's not necessary.
No heater (room temp)
Treated tap water (don't worry about KH/GH - you live in CA, it's hard enough)
They eat pretty much anything. Any kind of shrimp or crab food you buy at the fish store is good enough.
Use decorations to make a cave, so it can hide and molt.

top needs to be fully covered or they can/will escape

I keep mine without a filter, no heater, no water changes, lots of rocks and slate. Thing breeds like crazy lol. It eats anything I put in, any commercial pellet food for bottom feeders/shrimp will be fine. I also throw in MTS and they eat them as well.

I have Marmorkrebs... for other species they may require more care. For dwarf cajun species they have the same requirements as dwarf shrimp.

Thank you for sharing the info! I probably buy a bigger tank for it and I will just use the overnight tap water then.

My son said it did not need water at all...so hopefully he would listen to me now

Have a nice weekend!