Australian Spiny Freshwater Crayfish

[Rod Bacon]

Has anyone here ever kept any freshwater crayfish, specifically the
Murray Cray (E. armatus)?

I'm going on my annual craying trip in a few weeks, and thought that
I'd spare a few from the vinegar, and have a go at keeping them in an
aquarium.

I've read a few sites that suggest that they'll be pretty easy to keep
(as long as the aquarium is large), but I was hoping to hear from
anyone with personal experience.

[Mariachi]

hey there I have an australian blue claw in my tank. it's heaps of
fun...it likes moving the gravel around..and it goes outside of it's
cave and digs around until it finds jsut the right now before taking it
home. Anyway most important thing is oxygenate water, they don't do all
THAT well with fish..i keep mines with a few mollies and tiger barbs
and well i do lose tiger barbs every now and then so i guess it depends
on the fish...and the crayfish. You know that they molt every couple of
weeks right? (less as they get older) be sure to leave the shell inside
the tank as they eat this for calcium..i think you are suppose to take
it out if they don't finish it after a week but i've never had to do
that.

They dig up plants quite activly..mines seems to take personal offence
at ones that's near his cave and trys to drag them home to eat
them....but you should still keep plants in there as they do need
vegetation in their diet - mines loves java moss. if you are giving it
food and vege from your kitchen be sure to give organic or the
pesticides might kill it (learnt this the hard way!) The only thing
sucky about the crayfish is it doens't really come out much during the
day...so i spend a lot of time sitting in semi darkness watching it.
Anyway let me know if you have any more questions etc..

[Rod Bacon]

Cool. To take one legally, the carpace must be 90mm long, so the one's
I'm going to stock will be quite large. Apparently they destroy
everything in the tank, so I'm going to have to manufacture a backdrop
(or corner) filter, so there's no plastic in the tank.

[Mariachi]

wow i didn't know they had to be that big! mines is only like 12 cm
long from claws to tail. It goes through destructive phases. I have an
interntal filter and it hasn't been damaged. The crayfish likes to cray
up the side of the filter wedged between the glass and the filter
though. One thing I forgot to mention you must cover your tank they are
great escape artists!!

[Rod Bacon]

They are certainly big, strong buggers. Here's a photo of one that I
caught this time last year.

http://www.wtmc.com.au/images/12-06-05_1213.jpg

And yes... he was delicious.