Hi there! I [28 they/she] unintentionally became a crayfish parent today and I’m very under prepared for them.
You see, I work at a small town outdoor sports shop and I found a very small (around an inch long) crayfish amongst the bait minnows. She has a broken antennae and apparently was living there since last week when another coworker found her and never said anything.
I don’t know why, but when I found her today I immediately became attached.
We don’t feed our minnows, so I’m sure she was just living off whatever came out or off of them. There may be a possibility she may have been starving otherwise?
I knew that they could be invasive so I didn’t want to release her into the wild. So I brought her home after my shift today.
I currently have her in a decent sized Tupperware container with holes cut into the lid and I gave her a couple of peas to eat. This is temporary as hell and I intend to give her the best life I can.
I’m going to be getting a 10-gallon tank on Sunday as I have the day off. I don’t have the best variety of available places to shop at so I’m limited to PetSmart, Walmart, and Amazon.
I’m making a list of other things I need to get for her and I would really like some recommendations and advice on care. What kind of hides should I get her? Should I also provide her with some tank mates?
I did find a care guide post that led me to this community but it’s 6 years old and the links aren’t all working.

Anything is greatly appreciated! I’ll provide a picture when I’m not laying in bed. ^^

UPDATE: confirmed a failed mold and he died.

We’ve had our male Louisiana crayfish for about a year. He’s probably around 18 months old at most. My daughter brought him home from a school science class. He’s usually been active, and his last molt was about nine months ago.

For roughly the last 10 days or so, he became unusually inactive.

We weren’t seeing him come out at night or clearly eating. I tried him with multiple foods. The last food I seen him eat was a tiny piece of beef about 3 days ago that was taken into his plant pot. It was hard to tell how much he ate though. His usual varied diet includes algae wafers, shrimp pellets, catfish pellets, and occasional tiny pieces of trout.

There were no signs of disease.

He lives alone in a 20-gallon tank.

It’s filtered and oxygenated with biweekly 5 gallon tap water changes and top up (I use water conditioner).

The water in Las Vegas is pretty hard, so we always add a gallon or two of distilled water

Here are the recent readings I have:

-Ammonia: 0 ppm
-Nitrite: 0 ppm
-Nitrate: roughly 20 ppm
-pH: about 8.2
-Temperature: 76.2°F
-GH: 425+ ppm
-Phosphate: about 2 ppm
-Dissolved oxygen: no idea but has 2 air-stones and a filter (has had this since day one)

The parameters we have checked have been stable throughout his life. We changed 5 gallons of water 6 days ago and moved his plant pot for the first time in a couple of months.

He moved out of the way but seemed lethargic, although did go back to his plant pot slowly.

Tonight, we found him upside down inside the plant pot. At first it looked like there were “one and a half” crayfish, so we thought he might be molting. Now it’s clear that he is partly out of his old shell.

The new shell is visible, but his head still appears to be inside the old one. He hasn’t moved at all for several hours, and I can’t see his gills moving.

We’re leaving him alone overnight. We haven’t tried to pull him out or remove the old shell.

Has anyone seen a crayfish get stuck at this stage and then complete the molt?

Is there anything safe to do, or is handling him more likely to injure him?

Does anything in the water readings or the recent lethargy stand out as a possible contributor?

Advice based on firsthand experience would be very much appreciated as my daughter is going to be distraught 😩

Male, female? What? I don't know.

Such a silly goober

My beautiful lady passed today. I’ll never love anything as much as I loved her.

Meet Mikan(Japanese for tangerine), she is 7months old as of october, and has melted in a unique and concerning way.

She started her molt around 7pm last night, and around 8pm I noticed she had finished her molt but was still laying upside down not moving. With a flashlight I gave her some motivation and she was able to get her self situated after her molt.

Im used to cray fish molting and then appearing bigger and more solid looking. This one on the other hand almost seems smaller and is way less vibrant in color. See the third photo where she is a vibrant orange even in the dark. She is now almost peach colored.

My other Clarkii have always molted and grown bigger she is the first to not and is somewhat concerning me. I had gotten a male Clarkii about 3 months ago and two weeks ago in its 3rd molt it gor bound and died overnight. I am very glad I caught my little Mikan before she got stuck and had trouble

But I would like to know is if others have had this ecperiance where a heavily colored lobster can just molt and lose like 70% of its pigment.

I have had light blue turn white and white turn light blue, and light blue to dark blue during molt but never bright orange to barly pigmented

I’ve had a betta fish for over a year and I think he’s on his way out unfortunately- declining in health, not getting better, he’s over two years old so unfortunately I think it’s just his time.
I’d like to have a crayfish after him. I’m being cautious about my setup, though. I’m a college student so my living situation isn’t as stable as it can be- I don’t visit home often but I do leave for long periods for holidays. I have a five gallon currently running at home so I don’t have to bring the whole tank back and forth- for summer breaks the ten gallon would be coming back home with me.
The betta fish has been my introduction to aquariums so I’d call myself a noob.
According to Google, a dwarf crayfish can be fit the tank size constraints, are rather hardy, and can cope with the stress of moving back and forth. It seems like a good option, but I’d like to check with someone who actually knows what they’re doing.
So, dwarf crayfish; with these conditions can I give one a good quality of life?

About a year and a half old, proud of her. Pro. Acutus, White River Crayfish, caught locally. She loves spirulina wafers and gambusia, and wants to fight me.

I just think He's really pretty and I haven't really seen coloration like his in this sub! Got him from Petco sold as an electric blue. Would love any suggestions for large hides! He outgrew his hides super quick!

Can anyone tell by this one rolling around if it’s M or F?

Hi everyone, I have a 30x30x30 cm tank and am thinking about keeping a dwarf Mexican crayfish in it. I've read online that keeping one in this tank should be fine, but I'm not entirely sure. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the tank size and setup. Is there anything else I should do to improve it?
P/s I am using a sponge filter for the aquarium

Hello! I am pet sitting for a neighbor while they are in another state, it is about 4am their time so although I have texted them I doubt I will get a response soon. They told us before leaving that they expected a molt soon. We have been feeding daily and removing any uneaten food as instructed. When I checked on him this morning I found him like this, on his side. I’m confident this is not a shed exoskeleton because he was still moving his legs and tail slightly when I first arrived. I observed him for several minutes and he went from moving a little to not moving at all. I can’t tell if the V shaped section on his underside is a section where the carapace has cracked to allow molting or if that’s normal anatomy. I checked the water quality and everything was within normal parameters according to the guides (however I’m not an experienced aquarium keeper) the bubbler is still going and everything appears to be working well. I turned off the lights, and am leaving him completely alone assuming he is molting but to my eyes this doesn’t look great. Is there anything I can do to help him?

Hi all, I have an outdoor walstad pond I'm wondering if I can add 1 dwarf crayfish into it to maybe help eat some of the plants. Currently I only have a handful of cherry shrimp and maybe 5 medaka fish in the 20 gal. Is it possible for me to add one to this tank and will it munch on some of the moss and dead floating plants that fall from the surface? The lotus flower also regularly dies about every week and I'm wondering if it will eat that as well.

Pic 1 is what it looks like now before I trimmed it back and pic 2 is what it looked like a few months ago but gives a better look of what it looks like when theres less plants.

While microfishing last weekend my friend managed to catch this massive crawfish on hook and line. Is anyone able to ID the species? It was caught in Fox Creek, VA. It also had these little worm like things attached to its carapace that we think may have been parasites, does anyone know what these are?

Sorry if this is the wrong sub.

I really enjoy having this guy my tank lots of fun to watch but I can't deal with him uprooting the plants all the time. Has anyone had luck gluing the plants to rocks , I know he will still nibble occasionally.

I had 2 marbled crayfish that recently died after both of them having babies about a month ago that I thought them and the other tank mates all ate. About a week ago after thinking my tank was no longer holding any crayfish at all I removed the other one I had not sure what kind but doesn’t matter. Anywho I was doing a nightly check on my tank and at first I thought it was just a big blue neo shrimp but I realized it was way too big to be one and i realized it was a baby crayfish a clone of her mother! I couldn’t get a good video because my glass had a bit of algae buildup but I tried my best to catch it. And I have not seen her again at all since then I’ve been checking daily and earlier today I even lifted up all of my hides and homes I don’t know how I could’ve missed her but there’s obviously a chance I could have I didn’t want to do too much and mess up the tank or even take it down just to find her but is there a chance that’s she’s still around and just hiding? I only found her this day after I’ve taken the big crayfish that outgrew my marbleds quick so I thought she’d have enough confidence to show up again but nothing. Should I just wait it out? Could I have been wrong? I’m open to anything even though I’m 98% sure that’s a crayfish and not some giant shrimp 😂

From what I've heard from my brother who has the tank in his room, Vanilla was watching through his entire replay of RDR2, even going onto his log on the left side to get the best view possible. My brother has told me that when he tried to play a different game that wasn't RDR2, Vanilla was not pleased and started to angrily kick up sand? When he switched back to Red Dead this promptly stopped. Today I thought it could be a good idea to let him watch a documentary about wild horses and I think he's enjoying it!!

Not much activity except for messing with the bottle and appreciating the filter after the stressful power outage yesterday though, I was probably more stressed out about it than he was 😓

Sorry for terrible photo quality

Praising the sun, iykyk