[sandiegoryu]

Well today I noticed that my dwarf cray does not really eat the hikari crab cuisine. He eats a few bites, then just sets it in front of his little "den." He just sits and waits. Then a shrimp comes by and tries to grab the food, and the crayfish goes after the shrimp! He uses it as bait!!!!!!!!!! I also noticed my cories had nipped tails and it was definitely the crayfish... I guess this is how he caught them.

So I noticed his bait trick today so I used a spout and blew the food away so that the shrimp could enjoy it. As soon as it blew away, the crayfish got out of his den and went after it! But before it could a shrimp got it and ran away so it was good. Pretty funny though

Just noticed how incredibly smart he was and wanted to share it lol. I have no life.

So how smart are dwarf crayfish? Do you notice anything that they do that is incredibly ingenious?

 

[<Frawg>]

Yikes! Part of the reason I got them is I had understood they'd be good community residents!

s

 

[sandiegoryu]

I think I may be underfeeding. I also noticed my shrimp antenna is a whole lot shorter. On my 10 gallon tank with 2 dwarf crayfish and about 40 RCS, ALL of their antenna are shorter. I gotta feed more!

 

[milalic]

I think I may be underfeeding. I also noticed my shrimp antenna is a whole lot shorter. On my 10 gallon tank with 2 dwarf crayfish and about 40 RCS, ALL of their antenna are shorter. I gotta feed more!

I keep them with RCS and have no problem with them. I do feed them a lot everyday. I make sure they are feed and happy. I have not had problems with cories either.

-Pedro

 

[NeonShrimp]

You need to say, "Bad cray, no shrimp for you!"

I have no life.

Of course you do. It's just that you choose to spend it in front of the tank

 

[wood]

I had an Electric Blue Crayfish and he was really cool, but was not a good idea to have in a community tank. He would go after the loaches all the time. Well it ended up killing him to go after the loaches because I found both him and a loach behind the fish tank, dead. Apparently he latched onto the loach and the loach just took him for a ride directly out of the tank, probably trying to get the blue bastard off of it...

I fed him plenty...

 

[sandiegoryu]

Wow. I get some crayfish are just mad. My crayfish gets food. I know I feed him enough because after a while he ditches the food. But I still see the cory's fins nipped and shrimp antenna getting shorter. I hope this will change soon.

 

[Color Me Blue]

LOL You got yourself a rogue crayfish. Maybe he just likes the sport of hunting? Give him a name yet? Hannibal? LOL

 

[sandiegoryu]

Ooo. Great idea. LOL I think of names for my guitars yet not for any of my aquatic creatures. I shall name him Kira, because I love Death Note and he is a killer. It's a "character" from Death Note, a manga/anime series.

I have a life! Its an aquarium life! and I love it :-D.

 

[A Hill]

Ooo. Great idea. LOL I think of names for my guitars yet not for any of my aquatic creatures. I shall name him Kira, because I love Death Note and he is a killer. It's a "character" from Death Note, a manga/anime series.

I have a life! Its an aquarium life! and I love it :-D.

You know that Kira means sparkle in Japanese?:icon_roll

I think you've got yourself a rouge DWARF Cray!

-Andrew

Disclaimer, I might be wrong on the word Kira, but this book we had to read in school "Kira Kira" and it said it meant sparkle sparkle (or something along those lines) and had a major thing to do with the book.. And I think the author was Japanese...

 

[sandiegoryu]

yes kira kira means sparkle, but in the manga, the name Kira was derived from the world "Killer" and since japanese people can't speak english very well, they say Kira instead of Kiraa, which is how they are supposed to pronounce it in Japanese/english thingy.

LOL.

 

[A Hill]

yes kira kira means sparkle, but in the manga, the name Kira was derived from the world "Killer" and since japanese people can't speak english very well, they say Kira instead of Kiraa, which is how they are supposed to pronounce it in Japanese/english thingy.

LOL.

Whatever you say :icon_roll I'm no manga fan, never will be lol.

But in my mind, your cray's name is sparkle

-Andrew

 

[sandiegoryu]

OMG!! This cray is just a killer! Today I was gone the whole day in a karate tournament (which was stupid btw), and the cory was dead! Guess what else? It was in the hands of the crayfish! He was just holding onto it and picking out its guts... He's like mmmm... I also noticed the lone pond snail had died as well. Just the shell was left. Man I wish I could've see how the crayfish ate the snail!

Once I thought I was overfeeding. This is proof that he is very very hungry...

BTW I got a 2.5 gallon tank for my crayfish so no more deaths... Just gotta wait til its cycled/balanced enough for them. Don't want to lose any crayfish. My dummies are red cherry shrimp. I figured the cherry shrimp must be less tolerant of bad water than crayfish so if the cherries live, it'll be fine for the crayfish. Pics would come soon in the Planted Nano section. Just gotta get my plants in...

 

[hooha]

Sorry about your cory. Do you have a picture of it? I'm suspecting maybe it's not a dwarf cray after all.....

 

[aquarium boy]

haha didint i tell you they would eat your fish? sorry about your cory but you were warned lol. in the wild the crayfish's primary food source is fish and other invertribrits (sp) snails,dragonfly pupas,waterfleas...ect (including other crayfish after they pinch each other to the death lol). i lived around crayfish for 10 years before i moved to were i am now.

 

[confuted]

I used to keep a small tank with a crayfish, and I fed him feeder goldfish. He'd wait motionless for days with his claws open, until an unsuspecting fish got too close. The crayfish can't actually pursue the fish; the fish decide when they want to die. Don't plan on keeping anything but feeder fish with crayfish. If you don't fancy the idea of live food for him, you'll have to do some research; I'm not sure that they'll take anything other than meat, preferably live.

 

[sandiegoryu]

Yes but Pedro(Milalic), has kept Dwarf Crayfish for a long time and has said that they are very peaceful with fish. I have read elsewhere that underfed crayfish will go for fish. Sorry no picture. But I can describe it. Now imagine a live cory. Now imagine it motionless in a dwarf cray's hands. Ragged skin, the texture almost all gone, the fish's eyes were missing, "guts" were gone, tail was still intact. BTW before all of this this cory had been the most bothered by the crayfish. His tail was much more ragged with no chance for it to heal. My other one is more active and has a less nipped fin. It is also healing.

I just moved him into my 2.5 gallon.

 

[epicfish]

Uh, yea....I thought crayfish were peaceful too. The ones I have are going after my shrimp. I'm getting a 5.5 gallon for them so they can kill each other in there and not go after my shrimp breeding stock!

 

[aquarium boy]

hmmm now that you described it i dont think the crayfish killed it. it sounds like the cory died on its own for what ever reason. then when the crayfish went to do his rounds he found it and doing what he does best he disposed of the body lol.

 

[sandiegoryu]

Reallly? Ok I guess the cory died of stress from the crayfish. I saw him swimming on top of the rocks noticing that the cray does not come there. He seemed a lot less active than the other one. Maybe he was already sick/dying and the cray made it worse :-(. Well I dunno what was wrong with the cory. The other seems healthy, but then again, I've never kept cories so I don't know if this is normal.