Dwarf Crayfish
September 22nd, 2008This weekend, I spent some time over at another GWAPA member’s house, Dave (ingg), and I wanted to share a couple pictures of his Dwarf Crayfish. I have kept this kind of crayfish before, and even had them breed for me, but I don’t have them any longer. They’re really neat invertebrates, and since they don’t get as large as normal crayfish, they can’t eat your fish.
Dave’s got a fair number of crays in a 37G aquarium. I think they’ve started to breed for him, but I’m unsure as to whether or not any of the babies have survived to adulthood. As you can see below, they’re pretty much just smaller replicas of larger crayfish.
I wonder if these guys would survive in my sunfish tank? They’ve all but annihilated any of the shrimp that I’ve put in that tank, but since the crayfish are generally a little bit more feisty, maybe they could defend themselves? If anyone has any experience keeping dwarf crays with shrimp-eating-fish, I’d love to hear your advice.
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:47 am
I keep these guys in a 20 gallon with some Muppies (Molly/Guppy crosses). It’s plenty tall so the two never meet, but should they cross paths, the crayfish would definitely not give a second thought to grabbing some fin. Feisty indeed. These fellows can survive, given the right cover. I gave my friend some of these little guys and some smooth stones piled together. There’s no way the fish can get in there.
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:54 am
I currently keep Cambarellus Patzcuarensis sp. Orange, and I have found that even though they have some capacity of defending themselves, they prefer to hide when with fish (and even sometimes with large apple snails!). Also in my experience, some nippier fish will simply badger the poor things by picking off legs and claws. So really, I was never able to see them because they were hiding almost all of the time until I moved them.
But I have read above others that have had success with dwarf crays and fish, but possibly not shrimp-eaters.
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:02 am
Huh… I guess I would just need to try and see, huh?
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:03 am
Wow M@, goes to show no two experiences are the same. Maybe CPOs are shier than Cajuns.
September 23rd, 2008 at 4:28 pm
how cute! Now I want some! It’s so nice to see them alive, went to the grocery store today and saw about 50 dead and cooked crayfish in with the seafood:(
September 24th, 2008 at 9:30 am
Kris
The only issue that I have seen that could lead to the demise of the crayfish is that when they molt they are completely exposed to fish bites as they are between exoskeleton’s and quite vulnerable. The above comment about hardscape is correct in that if you give them places that the fish cant get to they are smart enough to hide. You would just have to determine if you wanted these guys again although you wouldnt see them as much as you would in a tank without the sunfish.
September 25th, 2008 at 9:02 am
I wouldn’t do it, crayfish are like candy for sunfish. They’d be exposed when they molt. My swamp darters (tiny) ate one of mine when it was molting.
September 25th, 2008 at 9:30 am
Yeah, I’m just speculating. I probably won’t do it for the reasons Patrick and Rob stated. They’re definitely cool critters though!
October 14th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
I don’t know the dimensions of the dwarf crays. I’d proceed slowly with putting them in the bluespotted sunfish tank. I made the mistake of putting some grass shrimp in with mature bluespotteds some years ago, and the bluespotteds managed to pick them all off. I was surprised, in fact, because the grass shrimp looked to large for the bluespotteds to swallow, but they managed to choke them down, just the same.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Yeah, the bluespots devoured all of the grass shrimp (and Amano shrimp) I put in the tank. At least the fish look fat and happy!