Living conditions for dwarf mexican crays

I have a species in the same genus, but native to the USA. I feed him regular tropical fish flakes, mostly. Sometimes I give Tetra reptile pellets, or such, to vary the diet. He is healthy and has always been among the most active members of my invert tank. It is heavily planted, and I have some big rocks from the local river, so there are places to hide. I keep the water parameters about what is normally suggested for tropical fish. I heartily recommend cambarellus. They are fun little guys to watch.
 
I don't think that Ken's has a ebay page. Here is a link to Ken's fish web site--you are looking at the last item--http://www.kensfish.com/bits2.html

If the Hikari is a bit to pricey then you can use any foods that sink to the bottom and they will do fine for a while. Any bottom feeder tablets you can get will be okay and probably preferred to other types of foods. I do not recommend flake food only. As far as veggies go, you will need to parboil them to make them soft for the crays. Frozen peas that are thawed (no need to cook them) and deshelled are also very well liked by my CPO's. I would vary their diet and don't feed just one or two items exclusively. Small pieces of cooked chicken are also well liked but you'd have to take the uneaten portion out as it will foul the water quickly. Don't be afraid to try new items as food for your crays--just don't leave the food items in a long time or the water will foul and make sure the items are low in sugar/salt and lack coating or sauces. I had one CPO that really liked deshelled canned chick peas and it was pretty funny to see that little cray trying to make off with a big chick pea so I split them in half for the cray and that worked out better. :D

Edit: just reread post and noticed that you can get Sera foods--they make very good fish foods in general--you should be able to get pleco pellets that they make and those will be work great too. If you can't, I think Ken's ships overseas.
 
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Thank for the detailed answer.
i`m trying to get sinking spirulina wafers/pellets and i`ll use my bottom feeder tablets (sera/tetra) and i`ll mix in some veggies and meat.
Do u add any calcium to the food/water?
how much do you pay for CPO`s there? here they started at 12$ a year ago and went down to around 7$ now (just to compare, a mcdonalds meal costs about 10.5$)
 
looked at ken`s site, everything there looks very good, but he charges astronomical amount for shipping to Israel (25$ shipping on 5$ worth of veggie sticks...)
are u using hikari or osi spirulina pelltes?
 
I have added some crushed coral to the substrate and do add Seachem Alkaline buffer to my water as it is soft water here. Crays absorb most of their calcium directly from the water column so it is very important to provide them with the necessary hardness. I also toss in some ground eggshells from raw eggs. They like to eat/bite it and the shells are very high in calcium--something like 85% pure calcium. If you toss in the eggshells just make sure that you peel off the membrane lining the shells or the water may foul.

I haven't purchased any Cambarellus patzcuarensis (CPO's) for a while. I have a nice breeding colony going of mostly solids but I do get a few stripes too. I really like them and like the intense orange coloration so I am trying to intensify and even out the coloration. The last couple of CPO's that I purchased was about 8 months ago to diversify and strengthen the lines of the crays and I paid $20 each for them. You should not inbreed more than 5-generations with any crayfish so it is important to maintain genetic variation. I started my colony with crays bought from Germany and from somewhere on the west coast of the U.S and Hong Kong to try to get unrelated crays.

I have seen sites that offer them for about $10 per cray which is a good price but they are usually of lesser quality with large areas of the carapace lacking coloration.

It seems like you have the food for them all sorted out. Your local fish store may be able to order more Sera products. so if you check out what they have I think you'll be all set. They have good quality food items for all types of critters. You can also look at turtle foods and foods made for hermit crabs.

Here is couple of pictures from about a year or so ago of the baby tank and a couple of the babies. The photos of one of Mom's too--she has eggs under her tail. I just love my crays!!:woot: !!!

Baby Angels and CPO 457.jpg Baby Angels and CPO 467.jpg crayfish 391.jpg Crayfish1 109.jpg Crayfish-CPO 179.jpg Crayfish-CPO 191.jpg
 
thanks for the help
nice tank and crabs :-)
i`m trying to get some astaxanthin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astaxanthin

there is a company in Israel that sells it pretty cheap (around 12$ for 50g (1.7oz) for the pure ground stuff) to add to my home made veggie patties i`ll make.
i think it will give them a good color boost.
here are some pics of mine, i keep them in 2 seperate tanks now, i`m working on a bigger one (10g) that will be ready in a few weeks.

a female i bought a few days ago (that`s why the color is very bright)
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one of my first males eating a crushed snail
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another male
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a pic from the first day i brought them, they became darker after a few weeks and a molt...
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wierd. i can see them... i`ll try again:

female eating a snail:
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male eating the same snail...
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my oldest male:
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another male:
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2 of my CPO`s the day i bought them
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Great photos; beautiful CPOs! :)
 
Awesome!! Now I can see the photos of your CPO's..:grinyes:..very cute crays's!!! Looks like they have a very nice home too!!

You can assist the crays with a snail dinner. I crush the Malaysian Trumpet snails (MTS's) that litter my tanks and drop them into the cray tanks. My CPO's get very aggressive toward each other as they L-O-V-E the snails and I can't crush them fast enough ( I use the tops of my large tweezers to crush the snails) !! They are able to get the snail meat in baby snails but not from the adults.
 
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