[crushalot]

I have a 32G planted community tank that has 5 CPO dwarf crayfish. I originally had only 3 of the orange variety and they were great. Not aggressive and didn't touch my plants or grown cherry shrimps. Then a few weeks ago I added 2 of the blue variety. At first the only thing I noticed was I didn't see the orange as much as I used too. One of the new blue's is full grown and now probably the biggest dwarf cray in the tank.

Today about an hour after a feeding I watched in surprise as the largest blue consumed an approximately 4 inch long piece of hornwort that came free from my floater spot and got caught up in some wood at the bottom. I thought these guys would not eat plants? They haven't seem to bother anything else but now I think they might have been eating my bacopa as well.

I have included a few pics from the end of his meal and you can see he left nothing of that piece of hornwort. Are there particular plants that you need to avoid with CPO's?

Is this just because it was a delicate floater and made its way down to the bottom? It was a fresh piece of growing plant so it wasn't decaying.

Anyone else have issues with CPO actually consuming plants? I mean he ate the stem and all!

All inverts are doing well as shrimps are always berried and the crays molt with no issues. Plenty of hiding places and plenty of plants. I also try to target feed the crays as they have all claimed areas. However I did find one of my panda cory's with a injury to his head this morning. I moved him to a nursery tank for now. Is it possible that this particular cray is just super ravenous and aggressive?

Thanks

 

[AVN]

It is luck of the roll. Most CPO are passive scavengers but sometimes you get an aggressive cray that roams the tank tearing up plants and challenging all the other crays.
How much bigger are your blue crays vs your CPO? I would also attempt to confirm the species of your blue crays, while the Dwarf CPO has a blue morph and stays under 2", it is often uncommon and stores often sell the larger blue variety which grows much bigger. The bigger blue crays are much more aggressive ime.

 

[crushalot]

Thanks AVN. It was procured from a reputable LFS from the same tank as they keep the orange and sold as Cambarellus texanus. Pretty sure that ID is correct based on markings. This big blue one is much larger then the other blues and just a little bigger than the orange ones. I think that the size/age and temperament of this one is just a little to much for my tank. Last night I saw him munching the end of the leaves of my roseafolia. Didn't eat the whole thing like the hornwort but still chomped the ends probably after the algae. (I know these roseafolia aren't the greatest as they are from a tissue culture that sucked).
Anyway he is nipping ends of leaves off of many things now to the point I have to clean the all the trimmings from the filter intake. I will take him back to the LFS because I have plants in all my tanks.

Now I worry about the remaining crays developing this habit. The largest CPO has never touched any plants, so hoping just a bad egg.

Thanks all.