Caring for Baby Crawfish

i just got a crawfish about a week ago that was "in berry" as my teacher called it. there were a bunch of eggs under it.

now some have come off and i can see the tiny crawfish in the bottom of the tub i have them in. they cling to each other and wiggle around. some are still attached underneath their mother.

how do i care for these? i feel like i'm not doing a good job. i have them in a rubbermaid tub with a powerhead that i turn on several times a day to aerate the water.

They are easy to care for. They need some hiding places, because they may eat each other. Predation will be less if they are well fed. They'll eat crumbled fish food. Mine seem to crave plant matter, they like algae wafers. I keep a sponge filter as well as an HOB filter with a sponge over the intake in my crayfish tanks. The baby crays like foraging on the sponges, they are slowly nibbling the sponges away.

If rearing the animals in a 10 gallon aquarium, select about animals for growout and remove rest. While small they will prefer and grow faster on small zooplankton of other little critters on tank bottom. Another method although not pretty is to add some plant material such as alfalfa or fescue hay. Place in water, preferable on bottom and let critters in water start to break it down. The young crayfish will clamber about on the hay catching the critters. Best to step up your aeration while supplementing the detritus based food chain. This system enables over feeding without water quality degredation that is more likley to occur with higher quality / nutrient dense feeds.

Keeping numbers (juvenile crayfish) low increases likelihood animals will grow up without loosing appendages.

What species do you have?

they are spiny cheek crayfish