breeding crayfish

[crayed]

Crayfish, you mean rice bran or rice husk?

Edited June 26, 2014 by metisdead
Bold font removed.

[DerkMR]

How come there is so much slimy sludge around the pump, I wonder?

Slimy always points to bacteria, so you have a lot of nutritients usable for them.

Bye,

Derk

[crayfish]

Hi. Just an update on the crayfish situation. I have been keeping crays for about 8 months, and during that time they have done things that often amaze me and sometimes confuse me but I have always figured out why and how they do certain things, untill yesterday!!! I emptied the vortex bio filter, first I removed the basket holding the bio media and was amazed to find a big female cray at the bottom of the tank. Pic 1 shows the filter and the plumbing from the raceway tank. As you can see there are two pipes connecting the filter to the raceway tank, one, which is entering the filter about half way up is the water pipe with water being pumped in. The other pipe at the top is the overflow back to the raceway tank. It is impossible for a cray to get up the first pipe as it would have to go through the pump, even a small cray could not get through. The return pipe, pic 2 shows the water entering the raceway tank, a cray would have to jump up from the water in the tank and crawl up the inside of the pipe to reach the filter system, not impossible but very unlikely. At the moment I am left confused, but I will work it out.

Last week I did something that I should have done a long time ago, I purchaced testing kits for Ammonia, nitrites, nitrates and p.h. After looking at the results I felt extremely lucky that everything was in order. The ammonia reading was .25 ppm which is well within the safe zone. There was no trace of nitrite and a low reading for nitrate. These reading show that the nitrification cycle is working and the benneficial bacteria is established.

Basically what happens is this. All water has bacteria in it. The bacteria we want to use is Nitrosomonas and nitrobacter. The water coming to the bio filter has ammonia in it. The ammonia is produced by the crays in their poo poo and urine, also from uneaten food.The nitrosomonas bacteria converts the ammonia to nitrite, which is very dangerous for aquatic life. The nitrobacter converts the nitrite to nitrate which is safe as long as it does not build up high levels in the water. last night I a had reading of 10 parts per million for nitrate, this is low.The danger level is 50 ppm +.

The reading for ammonia was 0.2 ppm which also is low. Danger levels for ammonia are shown in the enclosed chart " ammonia chart docx' The levels are dependant on temperature and ph levels. I had no trace of nitrites. I can conclude from these readings that the nitrification cycle is working well, the ammonia is being changed to nitrite and the nitrite is being changed to nitrate. The only real problem with having nitrates in the water is that over time it will build up to dangerous levels and a water change is required. The way to remove nitrates from the water is to grow plants in the water, the plants will consume all the nitrate and the water going back to the fish tank is pure and never needs to be changed. This is called aquaponics as opposed to aquaculture which has no plants. I have learnt a lot in the last few weeks and really happy that I have. I feel so much more confident with what I am doing, not just hoping everything is o.k. As I said before, I am extremely lucky not to have lost any crays.

Up untill last week I was testing p.h. levels using litmus strips, I thought I was getting accurate readings, until I purchaced a digital reader. The strips basically tell you if you are above or below 7. The digital reader gives very precise readings to .01.

The total investment for the kits is about 3000 baht, well worth it.

I went to look at the crays I sold to a guy in the next village, he told me they all got out the netting and are now living in the reserviour. The chance of any surviving is very slim, there are a lot of fish in there. But then again I consider crays as born survivors.

Will try to find time to make a video soon, am busy with the tilapia and the aquaponics just now.

Regards

Crayfish

ammonia chart.docx

Edited June 26, 2014 by metisdead
Oversize font reset to normal.

[weedywhaoo]

Dear crayfish. Could you please tell me what type of test kit you bought and where you bought it.

I would like to do tests for my water as well. Thank you for all your posts here.

Sent from my SM-G900F using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[crayfish]

Hi Weedywhaoo The test kits are made by a company called Tetra. Their website is www.tetra.net. It's a german company. I bought them from the aquarium shop in the main provincial town, they had to order them from Bangkok. Tetra have a lot of material. have a look at their web site.

Good luck. If you have any problems I can send you the kits from here. Strongly advise you to buy a digital ph meter, about 2000 baht made by hanna. website www.Hannainst.com

Regards

Crayfish.

Edited June 26, 2014 by metisdead
Oversize font reset to normal.

[crayed]

Can anyone please help answer? How do I transport month old baby crays by car. Journey should take 1 and a half hours by road. Will they survive the journey? I'll put them in a styrofoam box with cover and aerators. There might be 100 - 200 baby crays. Thanks

Edited June 26, 2014 by metisdead
Bold font removed.

[canuckamuck]

MIne survived 6 days in post but they had individual bags with pure 02 added.

I don't think Crays use very much oxygen. I am sure they will make the trip.

[crayed]

Thanks, now I am more confident

[weedywhaoo]

I bought crays in sakaeow provins, put them in a plastic box and drove to phuket. All survived but i had a battery powered aerator. Good luck...

[crayfish]

Hi. crayed.... Transporting the newborns is not a problem as long as you keep them wet. Crays can live out of water for days providing they are kept wet.They don't need water to breathe air. I am a bit puzzled as to why you have bought so many, not knowing how many are male or female. You will have thousands of them in about 4 months from now.. What are you going to feed them on??? Do you have photoplankton already colonized in your tank???

Good luck with them. keep in touch.

Hi Weedywhaoo.... Did you manage to get hold of water test kits. water tests aqua.docx Enclosed is a chart I made to keep records of tests. How are your crays doing, like to see some more pics. What do you feed them?? I make all the food myself and feed them just after dark. If you want info on making the food let me know.

I feel so much better knowing the quality and condition of the water, am doing tests every 3 days an it is stable in the safe zone.

Regards

Crayfish

Edited June 26, 2014 by metisdead
Oversize font reset to normal.

[maxisrael]

I just want to mention that new concrete will give off some poisious stuff. Before you put in the crafish, have water in the tank and change the water several times before finally putting in the crayfishes.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Maybe a late reaction but when we build a pond for our koicarps my brother in law drops cut-up 'old' banaatrees in in the water (twice) after 5 days we put the fish in the pond no problem at all.

I am very interested in growing crayfish we have a pond 100 tqlang wah with a depth of 1,5 meter where we keep talapia fish.

Edited June 27, 2014 by maxisrael

[crayed]

Wrote a reply but lost it in cyberspace......sigh. Thank you all for replying and helping me out. Cray, I had 10 but now there is only 5 left and it looks like there is one female, she had berries, but few ago when I checked, she was not carrying any. So I put her in with a male hopefully they don't divorce or he commit murder. I have 4 males in the original tank now. I was thinking of getting 100 babies from this chap who deals in crays. Or eat 2 males and buy a few females. He has won a couple of awards since he started, aquaponic style. I advised him to raise worms in the hydroton as he has not got much plants. He sells the babies at 10 Baht each, the matured male and females at 200.00 Bhat. But if you learn from him, he charges X amount of money and he has an offer to raise the Crays for you for a year at which end you take all the Crays raised. I didnot ask him how many there will be eventually. I can only raise more Crays after I have got the Canopy, sockets and tanks ready. That will take me into late July. Wish I had another crazy "Crayed" living nearby.

Can you tell me how the Banana tree truck method works? Sounds interesting as I have many trees in the garden. Thank you all for your help.

Edited June 27, 2014 by metisdead
Bold font removed again. Please stop using bold or overly large font when posting.

[crayed]

Crayfish, you use ricehusks or rice bran in your recipe? Yhanks

[sgtsabai]

After all these years I never even though of looking through the forum for crawfish. Ok, that tells you were I am from. We call them mud bugs. They are harvested starting around March and continue until around May. Many prefer the wild ones over the farm raised ones. In reality farmed raised are just harvested from rice fields, mostly on a rotating basis. I like them better than shrimp and I love shrimp. Down in SE Texas/Louisiana they are everywhere, including people's yards. I'm not sure that variety would be appreciated here in Thailand, they love rice paddies. I've seen them as far north as the mountain area of Northern New Mexico, near the Colorado border. That lake froze over with enough ice to drive a light weight vehicle on it, not me and we no longer permitted. I never could catch enough to eat there, but they made good fish bait. I do miss the crawfish boils (corn on the cob with red potatoes thrown in with the crawfish), cayenee red pepper, beer(had to have-cayenne pet mak, mak), Cajun music etc. Le bon ton rule'. Thanks guys quite interesting.

[laochef]

Hi All !

Extremely interesting topic ! Just came across it after browsing the differen topics on Small Farming... After 30 years i LOS, I now live in Laos. In LOS I used to grow fresh water prawns, 1 kg after about 18 months, huge !!! A couple of years ago at an Agro Show in Vientiane, I bought 2 males & 6 females, yabbies, they sold them by the kilo, mature 800 THB and 4", 400THB - then realised I didn't have a pond at my place. So I put them in a friends Duck pond, about 6x8 meters & 2-3 meters deep. And, of course forgot all about them (to old & to much work ;o), as well as loosing the brochure the farm handed out...so I can not find farm... Now I will set up an aquaponics system with crayfish and tilapia.

Now I have a few qustions (sorry if they have already been answered, but here in the jungle Inet is slow, so I've not been able to read every post ;o(

Anyone knows where in Nong Khai - Udon area I can by fingerlings ?

Anyone has a list of resources (aka shops where to buy) ?

Any other resorces that would be useful for a newbie ?

Thanks a lot in advance, Cheers, Chris

[sgtsabai]

Chris, I'm in Udon, up in NK a lot. I never even thought of looking for crawfish here. Are you looking for shrimp or crawfish? One of the posts on this thread said something about a crawfish farm in Khon Kaen, might be a bit out of date. Try Udonmap and see if anybody on there might know.

[nitecm]

Bought a few red and white crayfish. can I use corn and soybean(cooked) to feed them. Any different between the white and red one?

[namdocmai]

Bought a few red and white crayfish. can I use corn and soybean(cooked) to feed them. Any different between the white and red one?

Mine loved banana but they are gone now, big birds got them.

[crayfish]

Hi again. It's been a few months since I last posted so just an update on the crays. For the moment I have gone as far as I can with the crays as I don't have an earthen pond to grow them out to full size, I am happy that I have got this far. I now have about 300 crays in the raceway tank. When I started this venture, 9 months ago, I purchased 4 females and two males, I also received 10 newborns free which we ate last weekend, this was the first time I have eaten crayfish, they really are delicious. First I purged them in a heavy solution of salt water, which they didn't like. The purging is to clean out their gills and stomach. Then I boiled them for 2 minutes and my wife took over and made a tomyam crayfish soup. I couldn't believe how hard the shells go when they have been cooked, I had to use a hammer to break the shells. The 4 females and 2 males I started with are still in the raceway tank, I want to see how big the reach, they are only 9 months old and it takes 18 months to reach full size. I'm sure they would grow to maximum size in an earthen pond. I do actually have use of a perfect size pond but it is 2 kilometers from my house and I can't guard against thieves and predators. All the crays I now have are offspring from the first 6 going through 6 generations. One thing I have undertaken since I last posted is keeping weekly checks on the water quality. I check for ammonia,nitrite,nitrate and ph levels. The crays are living a contented life, I rarely see any during the day as they are all hiding and sleeping, but at night time, just after dark the tank looks overcrowded, it is impossible to accurately count them. They are eating well and going through a lot of food. I dedicate Saturday mornings to making food for them . I am not concerned about turning the venture into a commercial enterprise, but there is a lot of money to be made, but you need a minimum 50 meter x 50 meter pond to make it commercial. I can sell these in my provincial town for 800 baht per kilo.

I am happy to run it and feed the family and close friends. I empty the biofilter every two or three weeks and the solids I feed to my veg patch and trees, makes excellent fertilizer. You can see from the following pic how clean the water is in the tank, I havent changed it for 3 months and it is crystal clear

If anyone is interested I will give details and pics of how to make food for crays, I also feed my tilapia fish with the same food.

Have to go now, will post again soon

regards

crayfish

[pigeonjake]

well you seam to have the hang of things now, well done

jake

[crayfish]

Hi everyone.

In my last posting I said I have gone as far as I can without an earthen pond. After a great deal of consideration I decided to build another raceway tank and divide the crays between the two tanks. This will relieve the overcrowding that is happening now. I put together an aquaponic system that worked very well. What I didn't like about it was that I was spending a lot of time in maintenance of pumps, filters, fish etc. just to produce a small amount of food. The system was also taking up space which is hard to find around my house. After considering everything I decided to do away with the system and concentrate on breeding redclaws. Aquaponics is a great way to grow food but I would consider it more worthwhile on a commercial scale. Here are some pics of the construction, it is 3 meters x 2 meters. Started it a week ago and is nearly finished. This pic shows the foundation floor made with concrete and the outer wall. This pic shows the bio-filter with the cone base. This shows the basket which will hold the bio balls etc in the top half of the bio filter This shows the tank with the inner raceway constructed

This shows a lip I am cementing to the top of the outer wall to prevent the crays from climbing out. . Once the construction is completed I will have to wait about 2 weeks for it to completely dry out. When the P.H. level is the same as in the first tank ( where the crays are now) I will transfer the bigger ones.

Will keep updated as I go along.

Regarding purchacing redclaws. I started the process of importing them from Australia. The process gets long and tedious. First you need an import licence, this needs to be translated to English. The crays need to be checked for viruses etc by the Australian government and translated to Thai, etc, etc,etc. I found that Rachaburi crayfish farm were selling redclaws so I purchased from them, somewhat easier. They were sent by e.m.s and arrived all alive after a 25 hour journey. The King's project in Chiang Mai also sell redclaws, there is a website for both places.

Regards to all

[rice555]

Hello All, this is a little OT, but the raceway is what I thought was interesting.

I found these pic's when doing some background work on fish farming. I think

it for shrimp raising?

I think the place is in HH, S. of BKK.

rice555

[crayfish]

Hi.Just a quick followup on the tank,now up and running. I have transferred 22 females ( 7 with eggs) and 13 males from the old tank to the new one. Have been in for three days and all well. I am keeping a daily check on the water quality, mainly nitrate and p.h. levels. The nitrate swings daily from 25ppm to 50 ppm. both out of the danger zone. The p.h. is around 8 which is also o.k. This next pic shows a cray climbing out the water to sit on the ledge, there are often up to ten of them sit there at one time.

All for now.

Regards crayfish

[chilidog]

I was wondering if anyone had any info on where I could buy some red claw brood stock here in Thailand.

[elgato]

Great thread! Now if I could only get the wife interested.....

[crayfish]

Hi everyone and a happy new year

Chilidog you can purchase breeding stock at www.facebook.com/RatchaburiCrayfishFarm.

They give a very good service.

Will be back tomorrow with some pics of new year barbeque with 50 crays.

regards

crayfish

[crayfish]

Hi. just a few pics of the crays we had for new year. we ate 51 altogether, 1st and 2nd generation. They weighed 8.4 kilo. I don't recommend barbequeing them as it affects the texture, not the taste. When they are boiled they have an almost steak like texture but when bbq'ed the texture becomes soft and almost flakey, however they are still delicious.

I left two females in the tank as they were with eggs, most of which have now hatched so once again the tank is full.

The last time I killed the crays by pouring salt over them, this they clearly didn't like. This time I immersed them in water and added ice cubes, after ten minutes they had all died peacefully.

I have been keeping crays for about 18 months now and have established a supply of crays for the family and friends. Once everything is up and running there is very little maintenance work involved. I have a good chance of purchasing a pond large enough to house 10,000 crays. The pond is very near my house and the land adjoining the pond I already own. The woman selling knows that I want it to grow crays and she is asking too much money for it, she is asking 100.000 baht when it is only worth 60,000 baht. I have wanted to buy it for several years but she would not sell, now that she does shows me she needs the money so I will patiently wait her out. If ( and when ) I get the pond I will use it as a grow out pond and keep the tanks for breeding. There is a very good market for these crays and can be sold for 800 baht a kilo to good restaurants. To open the market to restaurants requires a continuous supply which with tanks is not possible. I keep my fingers crossed.

All for now

Regards Crayfish

[weedywhaoo]

Crayfish

Just bear in mind that ideally you should have 2 grow out ponds and separate males and females, otherwise you would end up with too much inbreeding.

[crayfish]

http://youtu.be/1DKSeAbtXZM

A link to watch one of the crayfish moulting. This moult was a little different to others I have watched. At exactly 11 minutes and 28 seconds it bolted out of it's exoskeleton and hid under a plant pot. Other moults I watched saw the new cray sitting for a few minutes before hiding. It may have been frightened because I was stood over it with a camera, or because there was a big male watching it nearby.

enjoy

crayfish

[crayfish]

Hi Weedywhaoo. In reply to your comment, I have written to the Australian agricultural department asking if it is possible to sterilize either the males or the females before putting them in a grow out pond to stop them breeding. I have no idea if this is possible but I imagine it could be. Thanks for the comment, somethingI haden't given much thought to

Regards

Crayfish