Freshwater Lobsters / Crawfish

Crayfish (crawfish, crawdads, crabs, freshwater lobsters, baby lobsters, yabbies, catfish bait, mud bugs or whatever you wanna call them) fascinate people -- particularly little people. Few observers can resist the way these armored arthropods clamber about on the bottom searching for adventure and scavenging for food.

In the wild, crayfish ARE the food. Raccoons, larger fishes, larger crayfish, lizards, Louisianans, and turtles all consider them tasty (if somewhat crunchy) treats. Freshly shed (soft shell crayfish) are especially tasty and vulnerable.

Well Armored, A crayfish backed into its burrow presents a wall of defense too difficult for most predators to overpower. When dropped into an Oscar tank, however, their shells and claws offer a futile defense. Oscars snap them right up.

Crayfish grow wild across the states, You can catch them in creeks and ponds containing no large fishes. Toss out a line with a piece of bacon on it. You need no hook. The stubborn crayfish gloms onto the bacon and refuses to release it as you pull him (sometimes them) to shore. You’ll know how well those big pincers work, unless you pick them up correctly.

Catch Your Own? If you want large quantities of crayfish, use a minnow seine. The 15-foot long ones will collect tons of these pincered scavengers. If you need only small quantities, they’re more practical to buy. They’re an inexpensive pet – initial cost and maintenance.
Several Uses. Commercially, crayfish fall into the food (for people) and bait categories. And then there’s the fun category.
Some 500 species of crayfish exist worldwide. About 150 species live here in the U.S. Most are about the size you find locally. One crayfish in Tasmania grows as large as your average house cat. Technically, lobsters are probably saltwater critters. Crayfish live in freshwater. Lots of those rock lobsters from South Africa are really crayfish.

Red Lobsters are really crayfish. You probably knew that. But you could find them in a local creek somewhere.

Decapods. Crayfish belong to the Decapod order. This means they have 10 legs – their two well functioning pincers, plus the eight legs they use for locomotion, breeding, and food gathering.

Pincers. Crayfish use their pincers for protection and to gather food. They are omnivores. That means they eat everything – your fish, your plants & your snails. Nothing organic on the aquarium bottom is safe from your crayfish, not even other crayfish. Never take a nap in a pond full of crayfish.

Since they eat anything they find, crawdads make good scavengers. You can mix crayfish with large fish. They make good scavengers in Oscar tanks (until the Oscar gets big enough to eat them).

Night fall. Their long sensitive antennae enable crayfish to find food in low light periods. They get more active in the evenings, work all night, and work thru dawn. In the wild, they scurry back to the protection of their burrows when the sun shines. In our tanks, they start marching whenever you add food to their water.

Breeding. Most crayfish lay eggs in the spring. Females lay dozens of eggs and attach them to their swimmerettes (their tiny back legs). These “in berry” females protect their eggs and young. Her busy little legs move the eggs around and thus aerate them constantly. Egg hatching time depends upon temperature. The young stay under her tail until their first molt. If you pester them and knock them loose, most will quickly return to mom. In a week or so, they go out on their own.