Intensification of redclaw
crayfish Cherax quadricarinatus culture
I. Hatchery and nursery
system
S.
Parnes, A. Sagi-2002
Aquacultural Engineering, 26(4): 251-262
Abstract:
Intensification of an indoor hatchery and nursery
system for the Australian redclaw crayfish Cherax quadricarinatus
(von Martens) (Decapoda: Parastacidae) was obtained by increasing the
surface area available for the crayfish juveniles and by synchronizing the
age of the hatchlings held in each tank. The former improvement was
facilitated by distributing an artificial seaweed-like material throughout
almost the entire volume of small (275 l) hatching tanks. As the number of
egg-bearing females was increased from 3 to 8 per hatching tank, the number
of juveniles per liter also increased to as many as 6.5 juveniles/l, without
reaching an apparent upper limit. The hatchlings were kept in the tanks for
75 days from the day females were found to be gravid and then harvested and
graded according to size. The average juvenile weight at harvest was 0.34±0.04
g. The weight distribution of the juvenile males was not significantly
different from that of the juvenile females on the day of harvest, and in
both the distribution was positively skewed.
(Department of Life Sciences and the Institute for
Applied Biosciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, P.O. Box 653,
Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel, Tel.: +972-8-646-1364; fax: +972-8-647-2890, email
of A. Sagi: sagia@bgumail.bgu.ac.il)