Crabs and Crayfish

[jbrown03]

Presumably crabs and crayfish are a bad idea if you have other fish that hang around the bottom.

For example I have a common plec and a large and small humphead cichlid, all of which hang around the bottom. The large ciclid is rather agresive with anyone who come in his area. In this case I would have thought a crab or crayfish would stir up trouble, would this be the case?

I like the idea of having a crayfish, but would not like it to kick up trouble!

 

[madasafish]

Happy Holidays!

(Can't get over these new emoticons!)

Crayfish do stir up a lot of problems IME. Crabs, according to others, and from what I've seen in fish stores, are much the same. If you look over previous threads with the words "blue lobster," "crayfish," "fiddler crab" etc. I think you'll find that most ppl have erred on the side of safety and kept these crustaceans in a species-only tank or with upper-swimming fish that can fend for themselves. I've got my blue crayfish with zebra danios, which are fast. The breeder I got mine from says he occasionally keeps them with African Cichlids. *However* I would not keep them with bottom dwellers, esp. (relatively slow) plecos. Recipe for disaster...

Other fish that might be ok: tiger barbs (Megalofyia has them with her crayfish).

The other side of the issue is, of course, that crayfish and crabs must have shelter for when they molt. They're very vulnerable after shedding their shell and must have a quite good place to hide. My crayfish have Texas Holey Rocks to hide in, which are *perfect.* Driftwood, if well placed, would do the trick, as would most rocks if combined to make a cave structure. If you're getting crabs or crayfish, don't keep them with live plants. They will destroy them.

HTH

 

[William]

I've only had 1 death to my crabs.

A little crab that has an attitude problem [ I rescued him because he was missing his feeder claw, and about half his legs ] decided that he was hungry and just jumped on and murdered my Dwarf Frog.

Other than that I keep fiddlers with snails, CAE, and a few quirky fish that prefer to hang out on the bottom as opposed to where they normally should be, and have never had any other problems.

 

[Megalofyia]

Actually, madasafish, because of you have have added zebra danios to my tank. I was looking for another type of fish to add. So now my blue crawdad lives with tiger barbs and zebra danios. After Monday they will be missing their friend the eel. Cause he's gotten too big for his britches.

 

[molotov256]

Crayfish

I've had a crayfish in my tank for about a month, and sadly, he did end up eating my smaller algae eater. I was told by the LFS that crayfish are mostly scavengers, though, and they would only eat a dead or dying fish. Is this true? It seems to me that it wouldn't be too hard for a healthy fish to get away from a crayfish, since he can't swim all that well to begin with.

 

[Goodfella]

Hi I'm new here.
Just a quick question about the crabs.

Do you need to give them excess to air? Like a stick or an object that comes to the surface so they can breathe?

Any help would be appreciated!

 

[kukerdan]

no, they dont need air, if you give them the stick, they will escape the tank....

heres my experiance.

I had two small FW crabs in my 90. Not bothering anything, cleaning debris, etc.

I added an 80c crayfish, (my first post here) he caught and ate the crabs alive, and killed my pleco, or at least worked on it after it died.

crabs are ok, crayfish are pretty nasty most of the time

 

[Lance M.]

Don't most chiclids eat crayfish?

For keeping crayfish and crabs it would probably be best to keep them in a species tank or do what some other people do- keep them with fish taht stay in the upper levels of the tank- so you could keep them with butterfly fish or other fish like that.

 

[timd818]

I think it's a bad idea to keep crayfish with any sort of fish. A few years ago a friend of mine gave me a 3 inch crayfish and the next day my blackmoore was floating and missing it's head :? . I got so mad I introduced the crayfish to my 9inch Oscar . I haven't' touch anything with claws since, not even ghost shrimps. Bamboo shrimps don't have claws.

 

[Lance M.]

I think it's a bad idea to keep crayfish with any sort of fish. A few years ago a friend of mine gave me a 3 inch crayfish and the next day my blackmoore was floating and missing it's head :? . I got so mad I introduced the crayfish to my 9inch Oscar . I haven't' touch anything with claws since, not even ghost shrimps. Bamboo shrimps don't have claws.

Lol. What a just punishment.

 

[Menagerie]

Don't most chiclids eat crayfish?

My dwarf cichlids have eaten ghost shrimp. If the fish is large enough, the crayfish will become a snack.

 

[Veneer]

Some notes: "red claw crabs" require light brackish conditions, and do much better with access to air (satisfaction of these two requirements forestalls most all disease amongst them); fiddlers are similarly brackish and amphibious; "soap dish crabs" and "moon" crabs can generally tolerate fully aquatic conditions, but tend to kill fish and do some aquascaping of their own (e.g., uprooting everything and consuming/shredding aquatic plants); a few forms are occassionally imported but do not do well in community tanks (out of an excess of aggression or specialized setup requirements). There are hundreds of colorful freshwater crabs suitable for planted (and perhaps community) tanks, but they are rarely imported (and usually die from neglect/cannibalism in wholesaler/importer tanks/in transit when they are) - to get a sense of what I mean, look to http://www.dbs.nus.edu.sg/biodiversitii/bio/fw_crab.html.

Edit: disregard the red underlined acronym text and paste the URL into your Web Address heading.

I don't foresee any success with crustacean-cichlid combinations (perhaps excluding a very large Cameroon "vampire shrimp", Atya gabonensis, a placid filter-feeder, and dwarf cichlids).