So, is this a decent size for it? It's 40$ at my lfs and it looks very miserable trapped inside a little betta bowl. I really want to put an end to it so.. yeah. Im planning to sell my 5g for a 10-20g for this crayfish. Got a few questions :
- 40$, worth it or not?
- Some inmates, or leave it?
- What does it eat? (a good source of food, not fish flakes 8])
- How will i fetch it out of the water when I do my full tank water changes? I mean, I have a bala thats gonna grow huge. (Its growing slowly) and I dont know how im gonna get it out of the tank..
- can it live w/o water?
(Blue Electric Crayfish.)
Please and thanks, fellow fish buds.
ok first, your cray is, with little doubt, a Procamberus Alleni. however the blue colour is a genetic defect, not an effect of the species.
they eat anything, whilst young they need protein 40% or so, as thy mature this reduces to around 25-30%. they are detrivores, not preditors. they do seem to like their meat fresh, but it would be snails, grubs and worms not fish on the menu. caves and places to hide, even when kept on their own, are important. many like to "play" in the air from air stone. often escape is seen in the same sentence as Crayfish, they are indeed cunning little buggers if they try, so a well fitted lid is a must.( though not many try to escape, unless something/one, is causing a problem, the same is true in nature) O2 is very important for cray, so putting the outlet of your filter at the surface is a must.
water changes, well traditional Craykeepers don't change the water at all, only topping up for evaporation. with a once yearly, total, tank clean. but i found 25% per week to be fine.
if you are keeping it on its own i would recommend bogwood. two reasons:
1, tannins are good for inverts, well it seems for most fish as well really, i never have found out exactly why. but my money is on lubrication for the plates of the Crayfish carapace.
2, you aint lived till you've seen a Crayfish trying to move a bit of it. they are industrious but not too bright. and will spend hours digging substrate away from the log, so they can get under it and push. often only to find the thing, falling onto them. giving you even more amusement as the cray tries to extricate itself.
food:
veg must be well past its best, they do eat rotting matter in nature, but anything goes down fine. cucumber, peas, courgette/zukinni, carrot, needs to be thinly sliced else it gets ignored. here's a good one, OAK leafs old preferably maturing.
same goes for meat, except that needs to be a bit fresher, but not too much. roast chicken, red meats can be fatty but go down just as well, cockles, muscles and the like. now a days i don't feed shrimp, there is a disease getting to be endemic in much shrimp production, which is deadly to the cray if contracted, sadly even frozen prawns can carry the infection. (it has no effect on humans) i have found almost all other commonly given fish foods vanish. as for frozen foods, personally i avoid feeding blood worm(potentially too many bacteria) anything goes down.
10gallons should be fine, but dont put plants in your tank, well real ones anyway.
ph, 6.5-8.5. as an aside to this, calcium additives are a wast of money, if you stick to the ph range, there is more than enough calcium in the water, more would be a waste. oh and don't bother with high calcium foods either. it seems little or none is digested.
finally something you may like to try. having set up your tank, cycling and all, put all the things you want in the tank, in the centre of the substrate, now just leave it. over the next month the cray will move the items, where it wants them. it fascinating to watch, and makes a brill time laps vid.
