I grew up playing with crayfish. I found them in the backyard buried in the ground. Although today I have taken another step. I have a pet crayfish at home. It’s a blue crayfish and quite impressive.

If you’re just starting out with a crayfish, the most important thing to know is to know a little about freshwater crayfish care.

Before doing anything!

If you’re like me when I first saw a blue crayfish, I wanted to buy my tank, run home, pour some water, and put that crayfish in it. Wrong. It doesn’t work that way.

You have to take about a week to “cycle” your water or you will kill your crayfish. – And that would only make your children cry.

It works like this. You add water to your tank and put water conditioner in it that removes chlorine. Next, add bacteria and something organic like a shrimp or fish feed.

You keep adding fish food (just a pinch) and bacteria (you can buy it) every day for about seven days. Then add about two fish, if they live then you can add your crayfish. I know, it might sound cruel, but you’re going to find out one way or another if your tank is ready.

Having the water in your tank cycled is essential to caring for freshwater crabs.

a little hideaway

While setting up your tank, you need to make sure that you put some kind of “decoration” on your tank. It can be a rock or some kind of small sculpture that you buy at the pet store. I have an Easter Island figure in mine.

Crabs like to hide. So give them a place to hide.

More about the water

Depending on how many fish you have will depend on how often you change the water. If you have about two or more fish along with your crayfish, you’ll want to change about 25% of the water every four weeks. If you have more fish, do it in two weeks. And remember to always condition new water when you add it to the reservoir… You don’t want the kids to cry, do you?

Also, when it comes to water temperature, keep it between 73 and 75 degrees. That’s right!

crayfish feeding

Well yes, you have to crayfish. You will want to feed your crayfish every day. Buy some sinking wafers online or at your local pet store and just drop one in every day. Crayfish will also eat flake food, freeze-dried fish, bloodworms, and, well, your other fish (dead ones too). So be sure to keep that in mind. It is quite possible that you will come home one day to find that one of your favorite fish is gone.