The 65 cent terror.......

[kukerdan]

I had an interview at Pep boys today, and just before, I went to a local pet shop that i had'nt been to in a while. They usually have some pretty odd stuff. Today I saw two african albino frogs (those ones that are usually tiny and sit at the bottom of the fish tank) that where the size of my hand! The owner said that someone bought them from here 2 years ago and brought them back because they got to big, and they come up and nibble your fingers if you put them near the frog.
ANYWAY...
Saw some regular crayfish, decent size, and asked how much...
65 cents....
brought it home, and dumped it in the tank...
'Biggie' did'nt move, and so i went out for a while, and came back to find my very territorial 6 inch elephant fish.. out of his hollow rock.
I lifted it up to find the crayfish back in with his claws ready..
nothing, not even the catfish has been able to get into his rock because he shocks the hell out of them(as they are electric), it even killed 1 of two freshwater crabs i had, when the crab went near it. This fish constantly takes pleasure into sending other fish into short convulsions. But this 65 cent crayfish kicked him right out.
I could'nt get the Biggie out of the rock, so I left it at that, after trying the other rocks in the tank out, i guess Elephant fish got pissed and went in to his rock to battle it out, and won.... no more Biggie in elephant fish's rock.
So Biggie is crawling around, digging in the rocks at the bottom and eating debree, so I figure all is well, no harm done, it crawled over the pleco and one of my big snails and didnt bother it....
so around 11:30 I notice 'Biggie in the middle back of the tank, fumbling around with one of the plant bulbs i put in there, so i chase him off of it , and bury it in the rocks,.. and then .. it happened so fast i didnt even notice, this crayfish is dismembering my crab! I had to poke this crayfish about 5 times to get the now clawless 4 legged crab, out of its claws, poor little guy ran for his life, and found a good hiding spot, i dont think it can survive without any claws... and Biggie is probably gonna find him anyway..
and when my albino cat and one of my tinfoil barbs was feeding off the bottom, Biggie got exciting and then tried to nip at the barb, he wont go near the cat now....
I hope elephant fish kicks his crustacian behind later......
darn crayfish

(***This post was edited by Menagerie to conform to the user agreement.***)

 

[krap101]

personally i dont like any of those choices. i think you should get a like 15 gallon icebox or conatiner with a bubble filter thingy and put him in there.

and 65 cents it better then here but not that great. their 75 cents here. i have 2 of them in a icebox with a bubble filter/driftwood and theres a hole in the driftwood so one of them hides in there and one under. their all happy now. i wouldnt consider putting it in my fish tank since ive seen what it does to fish in the lfs they had a blue prawn in with corys. and junked em up. he almost sold me a cory with a bad tail but i... wanted a different one. i dont think i could keep it alive. it was swimming normal but it looked really jacked up. i wish i had a quarentine tank so i coulda gotten it and kept it in ther for ahwile.

i say get an icebox at lowes theres a 50 gallon tub for 15.99 i think thats a great price. im getting one b4 winter for my goldfish so they dont freeze

 

[Menagerie]

kukerdan, I see this is your first post~
[center:3534937f10] Welcome to AA! [/center:3534937f10]
I wanted to let you know that we do not advocate:
~Put a big crab/crayfish in there to fight him
~Throw him in the lake so he can deal with 'real fish'
~Flush
You left out the most reasonable choice, which is to bring Biggie back to the store.

 

[krap101]

or get a container/icebox 8P

but i feel (s)he has some attachment to the crayfish in the name (s)he chose for it.

 

[pkremer]

I agree with Menagerie and krap101, I don't like any of those choices, I would take him back to the store. But then again, I am kind of a pacifist when it comes to fish. I love the way lobsters, crabs, crayfish look, but I don't want their nastiness in my aquarium.

Do "trials of life" happen in the fish world? Of course they do! But I didn't buy an aquarium to watch it happen. I bought it to be a fun relaxing hobby. Watching a crayfish fight and dismember other tankmates isn't what I have in mind.

Paul

 

[Menagerie]

Can someone give some personal experience keeping crayfish in a community aquarium. Thanks!

 

[fishfreek]

We are here to promote responsible aquarists behavor. ANything less is unacceptable.

 

[oscarbreeder]

I had a crayfish in our 55gal community tank for a while until 2 fish came up missing and one of my angel fish had NO fins.
He was then moved to a 5gal but out grew that.
Now his home is in the 180gal with driftwood and rocks to hide in/under.
All is calm because he knows better then to mess with the Oscar trio.

 

[JoseRZ]

What no choice for "having a mini cajun cook off "

/jk

 

[madasafish]

Troll??? Troll.

Crayfish are generally really bad in a community setting with anything other than the fastest, surface-dwelling fish. I've kept them (sold them back to the store), and found them to be uninteresting and unreasonably belligerent. Give him back to the store.

Also... I'm not sure if your post was a troll or not. Perhaps you really don't know that sensitive fish such as Elephant Noses (Gnathonemus spp.; Morymyrus spp.) do not belong in a tank with semi-aggessive fish such as barbs, and potential predators such as crabs, electric catfish, and crayfish.

If this was not a troll, please consider moving the elephant nose. They're slow to compete, and though many of them live in the same environment as aggressive cichlids (E.g. Lake Tanganyika), they usually fulfill very different niches and no not interact with these fish. In an aquarium, they do not do well with any other fish, as they're non-competitive, and require a constant diet of live brine shrimp and worms. They hunt by their electro-sensory organ, and respond to motion.

How long have you had this elephant nose, btw?

Finally, an electric catfish is not a suitable tankmate for any of these fish... It is powerful and will eventually kill all other fish in the tank... Electric catfish should be kept in species-only tanks...

 

[kukerdan]

no eletric catfish.... its a channel cat, the elephant fish has been there for 4 weeks, and is doing fine, as for being non competitive as you say,it has made every fish (barbs, catfish, and all) stay far far out of its path, because ive seen it send a fish or two spasming away from a shock, when it wants food, it goes out of its rock and chases all of the other fish away to get it, hes a pretty happy guy, and has actually started interacting with the other fish instead of just hiding and eating, the tinfoil barbs i have are not agressive, But today i added a spotted cory, two gourami's, and 2 african fish (i forgot the name, but they look like tetras)

 

[ChileRelleno]

That was my thought too, except you really need about 10lbs mudbugs per person and some good spicy boil

 

[ChileRelleno]

That was my thought too, except you really need about 10lbs mudbugs per person and some good spicy boil

 

[dhs9831]

Kill the da*n thing!... Im joking of course... why not just return him, seems more humane dont you think?

 

[YellowMP5]

i have one crayfish that i bought maybe 2 or 3 weeks ago. its fairly large in size. the interesting part is that it molted couple of days after i bought it. i saw it on its side and i freaked out, thought he was dying since i have lost one crayfish before from the same store a week after i bought it. but he was molting and it was pretty exciting to watch.

anyways, i haven't seen my crayfish bother any other fish or even the snail. he did climb on it a couple of times but apparetly didn't hurt it. i do feed him well. he likes tetramin viriety wafers (you can actually hear him biting chunks off) as well as frozen corn.

so maybe your crayfish is hungry? feed him well and he might not bother others. also mine did hide for the first few days but no he is always out even when the lights are on. so i took his "house" out.