Mexican Orange Dwarf Crayfish (CPO) can't finish its molting

**matti2uude** · 13th Jan 2011, 11:44 PM

Igor your link doesn't seem to work for me.

**igorKanshyn** · 14th Jan 2011, 01:04 AM

Originally Posted by matti2uude

Igor your link doesn't seem to work for me.

Thank you. It's fixed.

You can see that it has only one claw and some legs look like broken.

**seetharam** · 14th Jan 2011, 03:43 AM

I used to keep CPO's almost 2 years ago. I did not know much about keeping inverts then and i kept them in my tap water which had a pH of 7.4, gH of 13 and kH of 11. They used to molt regularly without any issues and females used to carry eggs all the time. But i never managed to keep the Baby CPO's alive.

I feel maybe the high gH made it possible for the CPO's to molt properly. But i cannot be a 100% sure here.

**igorKanshyn** · 15th Jan 2011, 05:17 AM

Originally Posted by seetharam

I used to keep CPO's almost 2 years ago. I did not know much about keeping inverts then and i kept them in my tap water which had a pH of 7.4, gH of 13 and kH of 11. They used to molt regularly without any issues and females used to carry eggs all the time. But i never managed to keep the Baby CPO's alive.

I feel maybe the high gH made it possible for the CPO's to molt properly. But i cannot be a 100% sure here.

Thank you for the info. I keep them in a tank with tap water (PH 7.6 GH 7, KH 4.5)
I hope I mine crayfish will breed, all of them except one look good.

**igorKanshyn** · 17th Jan 2011, 04:48 PM

Although, that sick crayfish from the video has molted todayit's still in the same state, it's laying in a tank corner and doesn't have full set of legs/claws.

**igorKanshyn** · 5th Feb 2011, 03:26 AM

Ok, there is a 'happy end'.

The second crayfish (it was a male) molted again recently and he is almost fine. He has shortage of only one leg.
Look at the video with it here: CPO male is almost recovered after unsuccessful molt

**Mac Myers** · 5th Feb 2011, 10:40 AM

Glad to hear it Igor!

**igorKanshyn** · 6th Feb 2011, 04:17 AM

So, you someone will found his crayfish almost dead after next molting, it makes sense to separate it from other crays and wait until it recovers

**wazooshrimp** · 22nd Jan 2012, 05:03 PM

If you feed your crayfish algae pellets with spirulina algae in them, or put a drop of iodine in the water your crayfish will probably be able to finish its molting.

Spirulina algae has iodine in it. Crayfish need iodine to finish molting, iodine deficiency often causes problem with molting process.