NANFA-- crayfish in aquaria

James B. Ladonski (jladonski_at_fieldmuseum.org)
Mon, 21 Jan 2002 08:31:33 -0600

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Thanks for all the good responses to my question last week regarding
seining. Moving to a different topic, one of my local nature centers is
putting an aquarium (35 gallon, I believe) in their new visitor center
later this spring . One of the naturalists asked me about putting crayfish
in the tank, which would also include several fish. Does anyone have any
experience with this? What are your recommendations, especially (but not
limited to) the following:

What would be the limit of crayfish you would keep in this situation, in
terms of numbers and/or size?

What have you found to be the best food?

What fish species would you recommend (or avoid) to minimize fish/crayfish
conflict? This nature center is located in southwest Michigan so the fish
for the tank would come from local streams or lakes.

Anything else? I know probably the most important issue with crayfish is
"cover, cover, cover", so I will see that they take that into account when
setting up the tank. Has anyone had any problems with crayfish attempting
to burrow in the gravel?

Thanks,

Jamie

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