Breeding Crayfish

[Penumbra]

Have two northern crayfish that I pulled out of a dwindling freshwater lake and after I quarantined them, de wormed and debugged them, fed them, and got them up to par with being clean and happy I purchased a 30 gallon tank. I cycled my tank with "stability" and added neon tetras and eased into adding fish from my 10 gallon tank. After my neon tetras and two gouramis were in, I added my two crayfish. I had sexed them both already so I know they are male and female. The first night I had them, the male and female began breeding. They did this several times over two or three days. So my question is, now that it's been about 3 says since breeding... When will my crayfish have babies!?!

 

[Penumbra]

This is my tank. The breeding tank is behind it which I started all my fish in, I ripped it apart because of all the mud and gunk and am cycling it now.

 

[FishontheRock]

I'm not sure this is the same crayfish I used to catch but I would assume that the tropical temperatures that the tetras need will be a little high for any native north american crayfish variety. Also, the ones I had as a kid in a tank would tank down shiner minnows so really keep an eye on the other stock!

Here is some info I found about northern
Northern Crayfish
Orconectes virilis - Northern Crayfish

 

[Penumbra]

The temp is about 25celcius and the tetras are doing perfectly fine. No heater added or anything.

 

[FishontheRock]

That's a good tropical temperature but this is summer. Do you keep your house that warm year round? I'm not sure where you are but where I live I have to keep my house around 19-20 oC in the winter or I end up paying buckets in heating. At those temperatures your crays (which are used to having a cooler winter) would be fine but the tetras would not be. However, few water bodies in N. America are 25oC year round (actually few in my next of the woods ever get that warm) so it may adversely affect the crayfish.

Another thing, if your crays do breed what are you going to do with the craylets?

 

[jetajockey]

I'd be concerned about keeping those large crays with those fish unless they are expendable.

As far as breeding goes, just keep them happy and healthy and they will do it.

 

[Penumbra]

I live in Colorado and yeah we keep our house pretty warm here. We have a solar powered steam run heating system that's extremely efficient. The fish are pretty fast and after the first day the crays stopped trying to grab them completely. Like I said, I have a 10 gallon tank behind my large tank and another 1 gallon I can set up that I have in my closet. I'd transfer the berried female to the 10 gal and after they hatch, maybe a week later I'll take the female out and take some of the medium sized spawn out and into the 1 gal until they grow a bit larger. The large spawn will just eat the smaller runts which I'm not concerned about. I have friends who want crayfish and have asked me to give them babies. When they are about 2 months old im going to sell the mediums and keep the largest male and female for future breeding after the parents pass on. If incest is a problem in the fish world, I'll use the small crawdad (not sexed) and the opposite sex of this clutch for future breeding.