Least dwarf crayfish

Care at a glance

Overview

The smallest dwarf crayfish in the hobby and genuinely community-safe, which is unusual for a crayfish. A group will live in a 20 liter planted tank alongside shrimp and small fish, spending most of its time under leaf litter and among plant roots. Confrontations between them are mostly claw-fencing that settles nothing. Feed sinking pellets and blanched vegetables. No heater needed in a normal room.

In the wild

Cambarellus diminutus lives in swamps and sluggish ditches of the Gulf coastal plain in Mississippi and Alabama, in warm, still, vegetated water. Keep it at 18 to 26 degrees Celsius and pH 6.5 to 8.0, with plenty of cover and some hardness in the water for shell building.

Good to know

Cambarellus diminutus reaches about 2.5 centimeters, making it one of the smallest crayfish in the world. Females carry eggs and then juveniles under the abdomen, releasing miniature crayfish directly. It molts to grow, and the discarded shell is usually eaten afterwards for its calcium.

Did you know

It is small enough that adult crayfish and adult shrimp can coexist, a sentence no other crayfish earns.

Common questions

Related species

• 

  Swamp dwarf crayfish

  Cambarellus puer

  Freshwater

  1.2 in (3 cm)5 gal (20 L)64–79°F (18–26°C)

• 

  Brazos dwarf crayfish

  Cambarellus texanus

  Freshwater

  1.4 in (3.5 cm)5 gal (20 L)64–79°F (18–26°C)

• 

  Cajun dwarf crayfish

  Cambarellus shufeldtii

  Freshwater

  1.6 in (4 cm)5 gal (20 L)64–79°F (18–26°C)

• 

  Orange dwarf crayfish

  Cambarellus patzcuarensis

  Freshwater

  2 in (5 cm)10 gal (38 L)64–77°F (18–25°C)

• 

  Marbled crayfish

  Procambarus virginalis

  Freshwater

  3.9 in (10 cm)20 gal (75 L)64–77°F (18–25°C)

• 

  Electric blue crayfish

  Procambarus alleni

  Freshwater

  4.7 in (12 cm)20 gal (75 L)68–81°F (20–27°C)