Rate My Fish Tank

Fri Jan 25, 2008 4:18 pm GMT   Reply      

I'm considering trading my barbs for this beauty. Anyone with experience caring for these? easy to feed? interactions with other fish/ aggressive? anything in general I should be warned about? Thanks a million!

Fri Jan 25, 2008 5:34 pm GMT   Reply      

Hey, what's up again! I used to keep crayfish for years. I got them out of the stream in upstate NY and I liked to watch them dig burrows under rocks. I'd put a flat rock in the front corner with a few smaller rocks under the flat one and the crayfish would make a den under it. The way I set it up you could look at them in their dens. I bought a crayfish at the local store in CA a couple years ago and it didn't like to make dens. It just ate all my live plants. I guess the stream crayfish dig under rocks and the pond crayfish just walk around all the time. As far as fish are concerned, if they catch your fish they will eat them. Most fish are smart enough to keep away, but crayfish (the ones you have may not burrow and hang out in burrows under rocks) will constantly be harassing fish unless your fish like to hang at the top regions of the tank. They're pretty cool to watch feed, but I've grown to like some of the freshwater shrimp which grow pretty big, up to 3 inches long, and you can have smaller fish that can usually evade their claws and they don't eat your plants. I think you have fake plants so that isn't an issue I think. Oh yea. I would check and see if you have pond or stream crayfish. If you have more than one and they're not of similar size or cannot retreat to a hideout the other can't get to they will rip each other's claws off. I just wanted to add that crayfish can climb out of the tank really easily on any tubes, pipes, or decorations in the tank. I used to come home from school and find my big one on the other side of the house surrounded by three cats with it's claws up and covered with dust. They can live out of water for a long time and can sometimes be as hard to find as a snake. Am I bored or what?

Fri Jan 25, 2008 11:18 pm GMT   Reply      

All that info was dead on. Me and my girlfriend just got a blue crayfish and we put him with some neon tetras and they get along fine. One thing I want to mention is that crayfish moult so you want to make sure stray away from aggressive fish because they will tear him up once he sheds his shell and dont take the shell out because they will eventually eat it. A way to escape proof your tank is to put plastic lids on your cords just like the bird feeds that are squirrel proof.