What color am I?

Post by **Mustafa** » Sun Apr 01, 2007 11:33 am

Ok, you can stop using the blue permanent marker on the poor crayfish now.

We believe you!

Good job, keep working on those crays. Have you tried taking a flash picture from an angle?

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Sun Apr 01, 2007 4:34 pm

No, I'm using natural light. My camera doesn't flash if there is enough light. Drives me nuts. What would using the flash do?

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 3:00 pm

OK, now I'm just showing off. This is the best pic yet. Still no flash though.

I sure hope I can get these to breed true!

Newjohn · Post by **Newjohn** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 3:55 pm

Is this the same Cray. as in the other picture ?

If it was up to me, show off all you want.

John

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 4:13 pm

That is his brother. They are my best two. Hopefully I'll get them to breed true in a while. They are fathering babies. I'll just have to wait and see.

Newjohn · Post by **Newjohn** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 4:27 pm

At what % of Blue / somewhat Blue are the Offspring ?

It sure looks like you are getting close.

John

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 4:44 pm

75% or more show some blue. None look like normal cajun coloring. All are mottled. Most of the culls are gray-green. I pulled about 100 out this weekend and selected the best for the next generation. The color isn't good in the picture, but here is a pic from yesterday when I cleaned out one of my grow-out tanks:

These are all breeding age. This is a 2.5 gallon sorting tank I use.

Neonshrimp · Post by **Neonshrimp** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 4:49 pm

Nice, do you get this many every week?

Newjohn · Post by **Newjohn** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 5:01 pm

Very Nice
I see alot of White/Blue

A few of my offspring are the Greyish Green.

John

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 5:06 pm

No. I transfer from my main tank to my grow-out tanks every two weeks. I take out breeding size about once a month from the grow-out tanks. I think I can do about 100 adults per month. Once I convert my "pond" to crayfish, I should be able to do better.

I need to figure out an easy way to rest my females. Too much egg production wears them down. I'm thinking of setting up boy & girl tanks with conjugal visits.

Newjohn · Post by **Newjohn** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 5:17 pm

I am figuring out a rack set-up with 5 1/gal tanks with a auto drip / drain.
1 Female Cray. per tank and a sponge filter. And Breeder Males in there own tank.

This will help in selecting breeding pairs for better control.

100 Adults per month

I hope you have alot of extra tank space availible or that Kiddie Pool will fill up quick.

John

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 6:53 pm

With a drip system you don't ned a sponge filter.

The area in a kiddie pool is about 20X that of a 40 gallon breeder. If I can convert that to a grow-out tank and my other tanks to breeding tanks I should be able to do 500 per month and maintain a high quality of life for the crays. I won't do a puppy mill operation. These crays tolerate a very high density with no damage to each other as long as they are well fed. I got 60 from a 30 gallon long having put less than 70 in to grow. I give loads of living space (pots) for them and lots of plants to hide in. Until I started pulling them out, I had no idea how many were there. There could be a real economy here as the java moss and java fern and snails bring good money as well. Who knows, I may break even yet!

Newjohn · Post by **Newjohn** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 7:10 pm

I do not plan on a puppy mill operation. I just want to keep track of who breeds with who. to see what colors the through.

This will be first tried out with my C. patzcuarensis . I have 4 totaly different colors. To bad there is not a blue in there, but there is a very dark orange almost red.

You work on the blues and I will do the same on the reds and then all we will need are the whites.

500 a month

You will be getting to know the people at the post office really well. Sending out all of those packages.
Break even, Make sure you set a little aside for the electric and water bills.

And then you will have to invest a little money for longer nets to catch those little buggers in that pool.
And there favorite hidding spot will be right in the center.

Or you will need to design a minature Crayfish Trap.

John

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 7:39 pm

Newjohn wrote:I do not plan on a puppy mill operation. I just want to keep track of who breeds with who. to see what colors the through.

This will be first tried out with my C. patzcuarensis . I have 4 totaly different colors. To bad there is not a blue in there, but there is a very dark orange almost red.

You work on the blues and I will do the same on the reds and then all we will need are the whites.

500 a month
You will be getting to know the people at the post office really well. Sending out all of those packages.
Break even, Make sure you set a little aside for the electric and water bills.

And then you will have to invest a little money for longer nets to catch those little buggers in that pool.
And there favorite hidding spot will be right in the center.

Or you will need to design a minature Crayfish Trap.

John

These were thoughts for myself, not for you. I know you love your inverts! No slight intended.

I'm on a 1st name basis with USPS and UPS. Interestingly enough, my USP guy knows about Mustafa although casually (never met him but we've laughted about the connection). After 911 he decided that there was more to life than investment banking. His place of buisness was gone after all. I thought he had a little more on the ball than most brown shirts I'd dealt with.

There is an old story about how to make a small fortune in the fish buisness.....

Start with a large fortune.

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 5:45 pm

Here is something I've not quite sorted out, but I'm guessing it is one of two things. After I cleared out my grow-out tank and thinned the population of the ones with the weakest colors, I added new daylight bulbs to the tanks and thinned the java moss.

The remaining crays that were sort of steel gray, blueded up incredibly over the next few days. I don't know if it was the crowding, or the lighting that did it. I've reduced the numbers to 2gallons per cray at this point. Just another data point. The two super blues I've shown already were in a low density tank with 2 males and 3 females in a 10 gallon tank.

These are really cameleon crays!