Crayfish and Live Plants?

[apollo6626]

Hey everyone, I have a quick question.
I am starting a native 75 gal with some amazon swords and a few other broad leaf plant species. My equipment is a fluval 404 canister, a powerhead and a duel bright T5 fixture. My question is, does anyone know any crayfish species that won't eat plants? I will have a few blue gill in the tank so i didn't want to do any shrimp. Any thoughts? Thanks!

 

[ktomminello]

I love fiddler crabs and there are some species of fresh water lobster that are plant compatible....

 

[apollo6626]

do you know what species they are? and the problem I have with the crabs is that my tap water PH is really high, so they end up dying within one or two days.

 

[MMantelli]

i had a cray in my 20 with some micros word and every night he would come out of his hole and destroy my tank i hope you have better luck then i did

 

[mwampoki]

I am currently running a native tank with bluegill. I have a crayfish that I caught in the same local body of water where I got the bluegill from and haven't had issues with it. I am currently running a 45 gallon with 4-5 amazon swords, and I have never had the crayfish touch my plants. Sometimes it will come over and hang out in them, but never eats them or digs them up. Substrate is a washed pea gravel from Home Depot. I feed the tank with sinking shrimp pellets daily, and the crayfish has a rock pile that it has dug a cave out under.

I have heard lots of people having issues with their crayfish, but I have had mine for going on 9 months now without a single problem.

Edit: I have no clue what the species of crayfish that I have is, but as mentioned above I got it from the same fishing hole as the bluegill.

 

[phin]

It kind of depends on the crayfish, but you won't know until its too late. Dwarf crayfish do pretty well with plants as their claws aren't big enough to really destroy a tank. But with a large bluegill, a dwarf cray might not last long.

 

[apollo6626]

Well thanks for all the input guys. So I guess I could just catch a few and see what happens?

 

[Wy Renegade]

Generally speaking, your Bluegills are going to enjoy the crayfish for dinner once they get larger. I used to watch the Green sunfish eat the crayfish and then spit out the claws when they were done. Obviously the larger the crayfish, the more likely it is that it will last longer.

Generally speaking the local crayfish are all opportunistic feeders who are going to eat a mixed diet of plant/animal matter. The better fed the cray is the less likely it is to bother the plants, but still no guarantee.

 

[apollo6626]

I knew there was a possibility of them being eaten. I have alot, and I mean alot of scenery that will be added. That is not the problem, I just don't want my plants being eaten. So you advise to maybe do heavy algae tabs? What about feeder fish? I will be feeding the blue gill rosy reds along with other mixed diets, such as crickets, worms and some other bugs.

 

[Wy Renegade]

I knew there was a possibility of them being eaten. I have alot, and I mean alot of scenery that will be added. That is not the problem, I just don't want my plants being eaten. So you advise to maybe do heavy algae tabs? What about feeder fish? I will be feeding the blue gill rosy reds along with other mixed diets, such as crickets, worms and some other bugs.

I don't know about the algae tabs, but I fed mine a mixed diet of earthworms and occassional greens, and even then they would strip all the leaves off of the elodea and hornwort, so that stems were all that were left. They would even get to the top and consume floating duckweed.

 

[phin]

my crays have all enjoyed OSI shrimp pellets.

 

[MMantelli]

I had 5 crays in my tank awhile ago and they would fight over the veggi wafers like mad I got a video of it its pretty funny

 

[apollo6626]

Wow, maybe I shouldn't even mess around with them. I do have connections to get African Filter Shrimp and Bamboo Shrimp. Those get big enough that hopefully they won't get eaten.

 

[MMantelli]

There's also the viper shrimp I belive its called they get a decent size vs other fresh water shrimp

 

[apollo6626]

Viper Shrimp are the same as African Filter SHrimp

 

[MMantelli]

Oh cool I didn't know that. Thank you.