CrayfishKings March 2014 | Page 17

Flake food

Algae wafers, tablets

Commercial crab / shrimp / lobster food

Cichlid pellets

Fish pellets (freshwater and saltwater)

Cyclop-eeze

Krill-based foods

Plants and plant matter

Vegetables

Leaves

Elodea

Beans

Cucumber

Zucchini

Java moss

Peas

Spirulina pellets

Carrots

Fish

Snails

Blood worms

Brine Shrimp

Blackworms

Clams

Here are some of the foods you can feed your Marmorkrebs

Marmorkrebs are omnivorous and will eat most plants in an aquarium. They will even try and eat fake plants as well. Veggie wafers and pellets high in plant matter are a good choice for their diet. Fruit can also be added as a snack. Marble crayfish loves

crushed snails. Snails are high in calcium and helps during the molting process. There is a theory that the marmorkreb color can change due to their diet. There is no scientific evidence to this theory, but true or not there is something that is causing them to change colors.

Feeding

Growth and Breeding

Marmorkreb grow amazingly fast and reproduce even faster. Marmorkrebs can berry at an inch and a half and each of these female crayfish is capable of holding 400 to 1000 eggs each time, with incubation periods between 22 and 42 days. There is little work needed to breed these crayfish. Since they are all females, you don't have to sex them. Just feed them a proper diet, water change once a week and the crayfish will do the rest.

Marbled Crayfish are very useful in the area of AQUAPONICS, or recirculating garden systems. The marble crayfish provide waste which is pumped into plant containers to

Other Benifits for having Marmorkrebs

feed root systems. Some greenhouse operations use the wastewater from marbled crayfish for their plants.

It has been known for years that feeder fish are a bad diet for your fish. Marmorkrebs are now taking the place of feeder fish. With the marble reproducing so fast, the hobbyist saves a ton of money by breeding their own live healthy food.

The Marmorkreb crayfish breaks the entire rule book in the crayfish kingdom. They are a great study case and perfect for the community tank. The best thing of all is that they are so durable that the beginner hobbyist looks like a pro. At the end of the day there is still one question. Where did the Marmorkreb come from?

By JamesJones 2014