freshwater lobster

[harmy4993]

anyone have any experiance keeping a freshwater lobster in fw tank or a planted tank?

Tropical Inverts for Freshwater Aquariums: Hammers Cobalt Blue Lobster

 

[SpeedEuphoria]

normally crabs/lobster/frogs/turtles all are best in there own tank since they will eat fish if they can catch them(like when there sleeping).

 

[new2betas]

I have had a fw crayfish before. I had it ALONE in about a 2g tank when it was small. We fed it earthworms and man...watching that thing attack was something. He was fierce. Kinda made me feel bad for the worm....lol. I also had a sw tank growing up and one of our favorite inhabitants was a pistol shrimp. They look like a miniature lobster. He was pretty darn fierce too. I would hide out in his cave and if anyone came too close....well, they were his next meal, if the mood struck him. He wouldn't really "hunt", but if a meal presented itself he was all over it.
Here's an interesting link to the pistol shrimp on youtube....this is exactly what ours looked like and sounded like:

 

[Retaks]

I had one in when i was trying to plant my 55 gal. He amnaged to rip up and eat the roots off of every plant in there in about 3 hours time. I got rid of him and still havnt tryed plants again yet since he ate $70 in plants.

 

[Phoenixphire55]

I foolishly had three of them in one tank with some guppies. I don't think they were ever able to catch the guppies, but one became larger than the others and killed the smaller one, then mated with the remaining one. After their babies were removed from the tank about a month after they were born the male killed the female and died himself shortly afterwords. Bleh, I'm not such a big fan of crayfish since then.

 

[new2betas]

I foolishly had three of them in one tank with some guppies. I don't think they were ever able to catch the guppies, but one became larger than the others and killed the smaller one, then mated with the remaining one. After their babies were removed from the tank about a month after they were born the male killed the female and died himself shortly afterwords. Bleh, I'm not such a big fan of crayfish since then.

Sounds like a brutal tank...lol....they are hard to keep and watch them eat things they are just so "vicious" when they eat. We originally found ours in a creek near a playground where our kids played. We only kept him about 6-9 months and he got so HUGE (about 4 inches). We returned him to his creek afterward and I am sure he ruled the roost there.

 

[JohnPaul]

FW "lobsters" (crayfish) will devour any live plants you have in the tank. Keeping them very well fed will slow that process down, but cannot prevent it. If it's green and living, it's food in their eyes.

 

[Purrbox]

If you really want crayfish, you should try to find Dwarf Crayfish. Unlike their larger cousins they are much more likely to be safe with fish and plants. They are usually obtained from other hobbiests, so you can check to see if the particular variety will work for your plans.

 

[harmy4993]

its not so much that i really want one. i wouldnt have a tank dedicated to just a lobster. but it is very pretty and just curious about other peoples experiances

 

[fijiwigi]

I had a blue lobster with African cichlids without any problems at all. sometimes this mean african cichlid that I had would try to pick on the blue lobster (austratlian) and the lobster would kick its butt to where the african would leave it alone. I tried plants but I figured it was the africans distroying them. just get fake plants and you won't have an issue. I had this really cool cave dwelling that I bought at Petco the Lobster loved it and spent most of the day inside it. Just came out in the evening and night. I freaked out when It moulted thinking it was dead but turned out to be rather healthy I had it about 1 year before it died. If I was as knowledgable as I am now I probably could have kept it alive longer.