What are the living habits of the red swamp crayfish? A detailed explanation in this article

The red swamp crayfish is commonly known as the crayfish. For beginners raising red swamp crayfish, understanding the living habits of the red swamp crayfish and taking targeted aquaculture technical measures is the key factor for successful red swamp crayfish farming. The main living habits of the red swamp crayfish related to farming are introduced below.

Activity habits: The red swamp crayfish is a nocturnal animal that lives a benthic crawling life. During the day it often hides in dim corners at the bottom of the water body, beside rocks, in grass or in burrows, and comes out at night to feed. Therefore, feed should be given mainly as a single afternoon feeding.

The red swamp crayfish has a strong climbing ability and migration ability. When the water body is short of oxygen, polluted, lacking feed, or when other biological, physical and chemical factors change drastically, it often climbs out of the water and enters another water body. Therefore, when farming red swamp crayfish, escape-prevention facilities must be properly installed.

The red swamp crayfish has a strong burrowing ability. In water bodies where there are no rocks, weeds or burrows available for shelter, the red swamp crayfish often digs burrows in the embankments. In water bodies with large water level fluctuations and during the crayfish's breeding period, the burrows dug are deeper; in water bodies with stable water levels and during the crayfish's overwintering period, the burrows dug are shallower; during the growth period, the red swamp crayfish basically does not dig burrows. Properly adding artificial nests in the farming pond can greatly reduce the damage caused by the red swamp crayfish to the pond ridges and embankments.

Ecological requirements: The red swamp crayfish has strong adaptability to water eutrophication and low oxygen. Under dark, humid and low-temperature environmental conditions, it can survive out of water for more than 1 week. Generally, maintaining dissolved oxygen in the water body above 3 mg/L is enough to meet its growth needs.

The temperature adaptation range of the red swamp crayfish is 0-37°C, the suitable growth temperature is 20-33°C, and the optimum temperature is 20-30°C. When the water temperature is below 20°C, it enters a burrowing state of not feeding or half feeding; when the water temperature is below 15°C, it enters a non-feeding overwintering state. The suitable water temperature for fertilized egg hatching and larval development is 24-28°C.

The red swamp crayfish is often sensitive to heavy metals and certain pesticides such as organophosphorus pesticides and pyrethroid insecticides. When the concentration of organophosphorus pesticides in the water body exceeds -0.7 g/cubic meter, poisoning will occur, and pyrethroid insecticides will cause poisoning and death at even extremely low levels. Therefore, the farming water body should meet the national fishery water quality standards and the pollution-free food freshwater water quality standards.

Feeding habits: The red swamp crayfish is omnivorous with a bias toward an animal-based diet. It can feed on various grains, cakes, vegetables, terrestrial forage grass, aquatic plants, algae, zooplankton, aquatic insects, small benthic animals, fish and shrimp, animal scraps, etc., and also likes to eat artificial compound feed. For artificial large-scale farming, it is best to feed dedicated compound feed.

Growth habits: Like other crustaceans, the red swamp crayfish has the habit of molting to grow. During the molting period, the red swamp crayfish is vulnerable to attacks by enemies and members of its own species. Artificial farming must involve placing some shelters in the shrimp pond or planting some aquatic plants in the pond for it to hide in when molting. The red swamp crayfish grows relatively fast. In a pond with good conditions, juvenile shrimp that have left the mother can reach market size after 2-3 months of growth.

Reproductive habits: The red swamp crayfish is an autumn-winter spawning type, spawning once a year, with the mating season from July to December. After mating, the parent shrimp begins to dig burrows, and the processes of the female shrimp spawning and fertilized egg hatching are mostly completed in the burrows.

The hatching time of red swamp crayfish fertilized eggs is closely related to temperature. If the water temperature is too low, hatching of fertilized eggs may take several months. This is the reason why egg-bearing shrimp can still be seen in March-May of the following year. Some people observe egg-bearing shrimp in May and based on this believe that the red swamp crayfish spawns in spring or spawns twice a year, which is wrong.