# Wild-Bred Crayfish Project



## Sylverclaws (Jul 16, 2012)

Earlier this year I was out with my cousin catching crayfish as we do most years(we catch them, usually young maybe with one biggie and keep them for a little while then release them each year), and for the first time ever, we saw some blue ones! Two nearly sapphire blue wild crayfish. Both I think were males as the bigger one was under a large berried female, who I later snagged...I was unable to catch the wild blue ones though. 


I ended up getting lucky with some babies, or so I think. 

Mama didn't look all that well when I got her, she may have just needed to shed though. Yucky fungus on her and some nasty damage to one side and to a claw, she healed up though. Here I'd had her her whole pregnancy, felt like forever. She got a bit chunky...fungus cleared out too. Her babies are popping out finally. :3


These are two of the adults my cousin just had to take home(We had several, I let them go...after they ate my snail problem for me! About a week later, if that. I try not to keep adults too long when they're pretty much in their prime like this).






These were the babies a few days old. Some anyways, I popped them in a breeder cup to get photos, they're sure aggressive, had to let them out pretty fast. Tank was covered in plants. All of the tanks(I separated them into three tanks), so fighting wasn't common, nothing serious anyways. 




This is one of the odd colored ones I got, initially thought he'd just be a darker color, but they're BLUE! Nice red-tipped claws too, I love it. Showing one of the blues with a normal colored one, hard to get good shots though. Blue was in attack-mode. He was actually a runt I felt bad for and netted in my 55 gal...I JUST found him several weeks after my cat knocked the whole net into the tank. I thought he got eaten, now he's bigger than most of his siblings. lol Said sibling spooked him. Or her, as it may be. 
 

I know I had a few others with the same color, but since she had so many babies I sold some to people who worked with these guys and only have maybe a handful left. I hope I kept more of those darker ones, especially if they all go blue. :3






lol Spooked. Using this to ask if it's male or female. Hope the shot is good enough, fat chance of ever getting another like that!


Well, let's not neglect the less blue siblings. lol Terrible lighting here, sorry. The ones I didn't sell have been moved to the bigger tank too, except one who is nice and aggressive and larger than most.


----------



## InStitches (May 26, 2014)

what a fun project  That is a gorgeous blue color.


----------

