Orange spots on blue crayfish after moult

Hi all,

my Australian redclaw crayfish recently moult, and straight after I noticed brown/orange patches on her shell. Originally I thought it was just some odd discolouration, but I’ve noticed the spots getting bigger and they look pitted. There hasn’t been any behaviour changes, although she has been eating a bit more, but I put that down to the recent moult.

I use a mix of RO and tap water to get a pH of 7.6. KH is 6 and GH is 8. Apart from a bit of algae occasionally, the tank is healthy and well established.

Any help with this would be really appreciated.

@Colin_T may be able to help

no idea, maybe fungal or bacterial. add some salt and see if it improves. Salt is the recommended treatment for marron, a related crayfish found here.

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SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt) or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, Bettas & gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria, fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

When you first add salt, add the salt to a small bucket of tank water and dissolve the salt. Then slowly pour the salt water into the tank near the filter outlet. Add the salt over a couple of minutes.