Captive crayfish diets

I have several crayfish specimens in our collection including: red swamp, signal, and northern. I know they eat just about anything, but I wanted to get some forum opinions on what the best food items in regards to nutritional needs and overall well being are.\

Edit: Oops, sorry I didn't notice the invertebrate section of the forum until after I posted..sorry.

Edited by EBParks, 15 April 2013 - 04:20 PM.

I feed mine algae wafers and Hikari Massivore Delite plus the occasional fish that they grab for themselves, If you ever want to swap some signal crayfish for some east coast species like O.virlis or C.bartoni let me know. I'd love to get a signal crayfish or 2

Mine love green beans, zucchini and cucumber. I have another tank with a bit of a hair algae problem. When I manually remove it I put in with my my crays and they make quick work of it.

I've been keeping large numbers of many species for many years now. The most significant issue relating to nutrition is the crayfish turning blue due to carotenoid deficiency. This is especially problematic in relatively new/clean tanks due to the lack of algae to browse on. This year, I think I've finally really truly solved this problem by mixing my own feed. I mix 1/3 spirulina (rich in carenoids) with 2/3 standard pellet food. I blend dry in a blender, then add water and blend, then dry on styrofoam plates. Not as simple as buying off the shelf, but the results are great. They crayfish all have natural colors.

As an aside, you can purchase supposed vegetable rich foods, like Omega One Veggie rounds; but after mixing my own feed and observing the much deeper green color of my feed versus theirs, I realize that their top listed ingredient (spirulina) actually makes up only a minute fraction of their pellets, probably significantly less the 5% of the weight. In general I think this exemplifies that many pet products are produced very poorly and they are most concerned about cutting costs. That reminds me of all the aquarium hoods I purchased that were constructed with plastic that's not UV resistant and completely disintigrated after 2-3 years. I think very typical for pet products.