Common Names: Redclaw crayfish, Australian redclaw crayfish, blue lobster.

Scientific Name: Cherax quadricarinatus

Availability in the UK: This is the ONLY crayfish species that can be legally kept in the UK, where availability of the normal colour morph is fairly good, with many local stores stocking them.

Feeding:Cherax quadricarinatus will eat pretty much anything, a good diet however includes such things as Hikari crab quisine, thawed frozen prawns, frozen bloodworm, frozen brineshrimp, other frozen fish foods and also algae wafers.

Sexing: Sexing mature quads is VERY easy, the males have red markings on their claws that the females lack. In addition to this the position of the orificies (gonopores) on the underside can be used, on the female they are on the 2nd pair of walking legs, whilst on the male they are on the 4th pair of walking legs.

Breeding: Although breeding these crayfish is quite easy, getting a pair is less so. You stand the best chance starting with smaller individuals, the larger they are the more likely they are to fight. When they do breed, the male will push the female onto her back and then mount her.

Housing:The bigger the tank, the better. For a single crayfish however minimum tank size should be 20 gallons. Provide plenty of hiding places with rocks and wood, this is especially importent if housing more than one, as if they can't hide from each other they will end up too stressed and will likely fight more. DO NOT house more than 1 male together. Be aware that they like to dig, making play sand a perfect substrate for them, but be aware that large rocks may become undermined and cause damage to the tank. Don't bother with ANY plants, they will destroy them utterly pretty quickly. I would not reccomend housing them with fish at all, although some individuals are quite well behaved with fish, others will make a quick meal of them, especially the young crayfish which will eat ANYTHING including each other. I however do house mine with a large number of Endler's livebearers and an Amano shrimp, which they ignore completely, but this is pure luck and not guaranteed to work out.  Temperature wise, some sources claim that they can be kept at quite low temperatures, I however agree with the temps suggested by Uwe Werner in the Aqualog special and keep mine at 28° Celsius, so would agree an ideal range of 24-28° Celsius, moving towards 28° if you wish to breed them.  At this temperature they grow very fast.

Photos:

Female with eggs

Female exploring

Male that had been kept with a deficiency, note the clear areas on the claws, these become red, very bright red on normal morph males usually, and did on this male on his next moult.
 

This is a male after moulting, you can see his old skin in the corner on the left.  As you can see his colour became much darker.

Photographs and video copyright of the author