Blue cray died.

[ShawnKC]

I just got him a couple of days ago. I acclimated him to the tank by adding tank water to his bag while floating it. He seemed to be fine, wandering around the tank the first few hours then making a home in a slate cave. He's been eating algae wafers and strolling the tank at night.
Today I added some new plastic plants that were rinsed prior to placing them and also did a 10 gallon water change with de-chlorinated water.
A few hours later he was laying on his side for quite a while and I was hoping that he was preparing to molt but he wasn't moving at all and didn't move for over 2-3 hours. I netted him out and he was gone. Could the water change have anything to do with his demise? I feel terrible, the main reason I set up the tank was for blue crays.

 

[ShawnKC]

No thoughts..opinions?

 

[jcolon]

This sounds exactly how my second bamboo shrimp died. After an overnight stay in my tank, it checked out around noon. Was fairly active through the morning and the previous night and my water quality's always the same. I'm convinced some inverts are already sick/ weakened by the time the make it to the LFS. Petco replaced it no problems and my first bamboo was also from the same Petco... Same tank in fact.

Doesn't sound like you did anything drastic to your water quality ... Anything else in the tank?

 

[ShawnKC]

It's a 30 gal. breeder with plastic plants, rough sand and pea gravel substrate and a resin tree root decoration with 10 Zebra danios and 8 Black Skirt tetras and 2 Flame gouramis.

 

[jcolon]

Well unless your witnessing a massive die off or your just completely negligent with your tank maintenance, I'd say the crayfish may have already been weak and just moving it to another tank... Even if it's better water quality... Can put it over the edge. This is not unheard of with inverts... Don't sweat it anymore, can you return it or replace it? If so... Go for it. With shrimp, go younger, they can adapt to water differences better than adults ... I would imagine crayfish would be the same way.

I'd love to have cray... Cobalt blue lobster... But I value my plants that provide cover for my RCS.

 

[ShawnKC]

The tank ran w/o any fish for three weeks and didn't have any fish until the day before I bought the crayfish. It's only had fish and the cray in it for less than a week so there really was no maintenance to do aside check water quality which was within all acceptable parameters. I can only assume the crayfish was weak or ill before I got it. It appeared to be healthy but.......
I called the shop I purchased it from and they said that they only replace or refund within 24 hours and suggested that it was my fault so they have seen the last of my business.
I'm disabled and since I cannot work I have to get by on state disability so money for the hobby isn't readily available unless I save for a few months.
I've been in touch with a breeder of crays and I will eventually set up another tank to be crayfish specific. I have several tanks and filters from the past so it may take some time before that happens.

 

[jondamon]

Hi

Sorry about your loss.

Do you have any testing kit of your own?
Strips? Liquid?

What did you do during the 3weeks running with no fish? Did you just leave it run empty for that time?



Jon