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Marbled Crayfish as Feeders


Ron

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I know people use Marbled crayfish as feeders but has anyone ever ate one themselves?

 

In the past, I was thinking of using them for an aquaponics system but normally the fish used are consumed.

 

They breed fast and produce large numbers, I just took ~375 babies from 2 clutches and put them in a 40 gallon to grow up.   

 

Maybe I'll have a crayfish boil and try it out :).

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We'll see how the new tank does starting with all babies.  I just added another 2 groups of babies, ~425, and a female who's babies are almost ready to go so there will be around 1000 babies in there soon.

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I know people use Marbled crayfish as feeders but has anyone ever ate one themselves?

 

In the past, I was thinking of using them for an aquaponics system but normally the fish used are consumed.

 

They breed fast and produce large numbers, I just took ~375 babies from 2 clutches and put them in a 40 gallon to grow up.   

 

Maybe I'll have a crayfish boil and try it out :).

These are exactly the types o' thoughts I've been having ever since 2 weeks ago when I first stumbled across the marbled. I feel there is a lot of potential in them.

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They mature fast.  At around 2" they can have their first berry.  From between 20- hundreds of berries each depending on size and maturity, you can see why I tell people to freeze the babies at feeding size for fish or they'll be swamped with them.  Of course with aquaponics, this is actually an advantage.  No mating required, so you KNOW you will have berries and not have to rely on random happenings.

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I have come across several good papers talking about how ideal they are for aquaponic systems in that they can be fed to the fish you generally have in the set-up, produce excellent fertilizer for plants,etc. They can be used for people food, but they are pretty small. Unless one of us gets lucky and hits the right series of events to make them grow bigger, they probably aren't themselves such a great HUMAN food source, but indirectly as being an excellent fish food and nutrient rich water for plants, they seem almost a perfect part of a good aquaponics system.

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