Love or Hate?

[jxr182]

Hey everyone. I've picked up these two crayfish, around a month apart. Immediately when I introduced them a little skirmish broke out. I was prepared for this possibility but was relieved to see it calm pretty quickly. Over the next week however I caught them multiple times locked in an embrace, mostly unmoving, and they stay that way for a while... 30 minutes or more. At first we thought they were male/female and were breeding, one of them even disappeared for a number of days which I read was something females do when they are with eggs, but today out of the blue they were both back out front locked up again, no eggs in site. Any ideas? Are they in love or more in a murderous rage?

 

[ADsnail]

Hmm...hard to tell the difference between murder and love, with crays. They've lived this long, which is a little surprising. It may be because they're evenly matched in size and strength for fighting, or it may be because it's a love match.

Either way, ask yourself: since there are no children by now (and - would you want them if there were babies? Because the parents will eat them too if you don't set up a nursery tank), do you want to continue the risk that these two might maim or kill each other? I have mine in their own separate tanks. It's the safest way to assure they'll live in peace, get enough to eat, not always live in battle-mode, etc.

 

[ADsnail]

BTW, nice pics and gorgeous crays. Both are of the more aggressive varieties.

 

[Colin_T]

You need to find out what sex they are because 2 males will fight to the death.

If you look at the underside of the crayfish, females have a small lump on the upper set of legs. Males have a small lump on the bottom set of legs. The lump is where the legs join the body. If you can post pictures of the underside I can tell you what sex they are.

The following link has a picture showing how to sex yabbies, but all freshwater crayfish are the same.
https://www.yabbydabbadoo.com/male-or-female-.html

 

[samual]

Colin is spot on with his sexing information.

That said the breeding and nursing of crayfish is truly fascinating. I bred them in the past and had a lot of fun doing it. A 10-30g nursery tank is appropriate and when you notice eggs on the female you should immediately move her to the nursery tank. The fry will then hatch and eventually fall from the female and she can then go back to the main tank.

Make sure you have a sponge on your filter intake or your new fry will meet a quick demise.