"What's a Crayfish?"
Hey! This thing doesn't look like a fish!
Wow! It sure has a lot of legs to walk on!
I wonder how many...? Scroll down for a closer look.
How many legs did you count?
Some of the legs are different!
I wonder what they do with all those legs?
Do crayfish ever trip over their "feet" like we do?
What is it doing to that shrimp pellet we dropped in the tank?
Hey! It uses its legs for walking AND holding stuff!
Can you find the crayfish?
Freshwater Crayfish habitat equipment:
- 5.5 gallon aquarium with hood and light
- Under-gravel filter (cut down from half of an old ten-gallon filter), air stone, hose and air pump
- 8 to 10 pounds of mixed decorative gravel for bottom.
- plastic shelter (on left in front of "lift tube"), decorative water plant, river stones for camoflage, shelter, and to hide air bubble wand.
- Feeding:
- We modified the directions on the crustacean food (shrimp pellets) purchased from the pet store--we feed 3 times per week instead of daily but provide a larger amount to encourage foraging. This lets more students participate in each feeding.
- Maintenance:
- We remove and clean the plant, shelter, and larger rocks, clean the glass with a magnet/razor blade product from Penn/Plax, vacuum the gravel, and change out a gallon or two of water every two weeks.
We occaisionally drop in any fish which die in our other aquarium since we discovered (by observation and confirmed with research) that our crayfish is a scavenger as well as a predator.
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Crayfish | Fire-bellied Newt | Gecko | Fish | Insects Our Classroom Website | Updated 3/8/01 |