Buy a fish tank with a small pump. Your yabby will need the water aerated if he is going to survive under the water. The tank in this pic is 40cm by 30cm and can be puchased for about forty bucks from any pet store.
Step 2
Yabbies are very active pets and will get bored if they don't have stuff to play with. I chose to add some river sand, some pebbles and two vertebrae bones from a bull for Fishfingers to play with. A piece of drift wood or a piece of pipe will provide privacy for your yabby when they are feeling a bit "teenagerish". The bones provide the yabby with much needed calcium for your pet's shell. Throw all this stuff in randomly. Yabbies love to decorate their homes and you will find that the layout will change nearly every day as the yabby gets active overnight and escavates the sand around into an environment that he is happy with.
Step 3
Once all the sand and hidey holes have been added, it's time to add the water. I used rain water straight out of our rainwater tank. If you don't have rainwater, then grab a bucket out of the river, creek or lake. (I haven't tried town water with flouride in it). Pour it in until the level is about 5 cm from the top of the tank. Turn the pump on and let it run for a couple of days until the water turns from cloudy to crystal clear.
Step 4
Buy or catch yourself a yabby and introduce it to it's new home. You'll be amazed at how active they get and how quickly they will start to rearrange their environment. I bought a male and a female which were each about 15cm long. Unfortunately, a tank of this size was only big enough for one yabby and Fishfingers killed the other one.
Feeding
I've been feeding Fishfingers on a diet of 5 pieces of corn per day for the past 6 months. Commercial yabby food can be purchased from pet stores if you like. Here he leaps of his house to catch his dinner in mid air.
In this next pic you can see him gobbling the corn up quietly
A yabby makes a great pet. He'll keep the tank clean himself, as long as he can stand up to reach all the algae off the glass. Enjoy the action at feed time.
