# Crayfish And Plants



## Smoke (Sep 8, 2010)

So I grabbed 5 crayfish the other day for $1 each... thought it was a great deal... anyways, I put one crayfish for each of my P's... The ones in my Rhom tank did not last for a single night, my Ruby Red killed his in about a day, and one Manueli killed his a couple days later...

One remained alive in my planted Manueli tank - and I learned the hard way that these things shred up plants! I called him, Edward Scissorhand - the Crayfish! If you all have planted tanks - do not put a crayfish in there. If it survives, it will cut up all your plants and mess up your filter









Be warned! Now I have to redo all my aquascaping


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## Guest (Apr 30, 2011)

I read they also dig.
Shame it did that, you should remove it and put it in a different tank to pay for it's actions


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## Smoke (Sep 8, 2010)

Yeah, but I guess it was my fault for not properly researching this things habits before throwing him into the tank


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## balluupnetme (Oct 23, 2006)

I put 3 3" shrimp in my 110g little blue diamond tank...they barely lasted 5 hours...2 of em were gone completely not even a trace and the other one was lying dead on the sand with 2 huge bites on its back...


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## Smoke (Sep 8, 2010)

Yeah it seems some fish have a higher toleration level than others


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## balluupnetme (Oct 23, 2006)

it's weird though, my rhom hides the whole day behind the driftwood, but when he's feeling comfortable he'll go ape sh*t, btw I didn't feed him for a week when I dropped the shrimp in there


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## Sylar_92 (Dec 15, 2010)

I removed the front claws on my past crayfish so it was easier for my fish to eat them and so that they dont hurt my valueable fish. I use to have a 7" jardini aro which had the tip of its bottom lip clipped off by a crayfish. People say that cruel but if the cray fish are just being used as feeders I dont see it being wrong, removing the claws also prevents them from de-foresting your tank lol.


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## Smoke (Sep 8, 2010)

Thing is, the crayfish wasn't meant to be food. It was meant to be the cleanup crew - which it does do...


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## Sylar_92 (Dec 15, 2010)

Smoke said:


> Thing is, the crayfish wasn't meant to be food. It was meant to be the cleanup crew - which it does do...


In that case...rubber bands lol


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## Smoke (Sep 8, 2010)

Rubber bands! Now that's funny


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## bigred (Nov 13, 2003)

ok i have a 150 gal with plants an 16 p's 8 red's 8 caribe's...in june 0f 2010 i put in 5 crawfish to help main and clean..it went good for a min. but the grawfish didnt get along.. after 2 months they killed two of them.. my p's never touched them..lol lol i had 3 for 7 months... and lost one red do to my son putting milk in the tank cause they was thirst.. got to love kids... i just lost the last crawfish last friday... cause he came out durning the day. which they never did... so the last one got taken bye the p's .. they never messed with the plants.. but i do always remove the big front claws so they dont take an eye out or something on my p's.. so that tends to stop them...

i use them all the time.. i never pay for them.. i just got catch my own... sense they will just get killed..


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## Ibanez247 (Nov 9, 2006)

Im surprised the LFS didnt ask if you had plants. Mine labels the craysifh saying not compatible with planted tanks. If you want a cleanup crew for a piranha tank get a snail. Only thing that has ever lived long in any P tank Ive had. Still have one in my manny tank and its getting big. Doesnt bother the plants unless they are dieing. I dont have snails in my pygo tank cause the Ph is to low. Id like to but I dont want to mess with the ph levels.


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## sadboy (Jan 6, 2005)

It is very hard to have any type of clean up crew in a P tank. Nothing that I have ever put in the tank has ever lived long. Also why would you risk injure to your P's but putting in a crayfish. They can really do some damage on a P.


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## Smoke (Sep 8, 2010)

Yeah I know what you all mean. The crayfish did not last long in my Rhoms, RRS tanks... but I didn't mind them being a snack either. It was a good deal IMO $1 per crayfish. Spent $5 for a treat (hopefully I didn't offend any crayfish lovers out there). The remaining crayfish is still there, causing menace everywhere still... I'm just waiting for Nemesis to put him out of his misery...

Hopefully he won't get clawed, like this guy in the vid below (*scan to 1:13 in the vid*):


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## sadboy (Jan 6, 2005)

I have seen where a crayfish has taken out a p's eye....


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## Smoke (Sep 8, 2010)

I wonder if the eye injury in the beginning of the above video was from a crayfish?


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## Guest (May 3, 2011)

Thats a nice Manueli, seems pretty aggressive, but could just be the tank.


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## Smoke (Sep 8, 2010)

That's not my Manueli or video BTW, found it on youtube


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## HGI (Oct 27, 2009)

Also just a warning since I had to find out the hard way, I had a empty 29g tank that I was saving for a time when I'd need it(breeding,hospital what ever) and a bare 10g snail farm for my fahaka puffer. I scored 2 adult marble crays for free and was told they would love the 29g but I figured "why would they touch the snails? Even if I keep them well fed!" Well needless to say they both spawned with 100's of babies in a week and killed my snail's over a few nights! So now they got their own 29g tank, and now I have to get another tank.


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## Smoke (Sep 8, 2010)

So you have baby crayfish everywhere?


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## Zeushalives (Dec 30, 2010)

Thats funny, I put an electric blue crayfish in with the hoard and he lasted over a month. They could not get to him or kill him (I made him a little tube tunnel under the gravel made of PVC piping) until one day I looked in the tank and just saw his moat and pieces of him scattered ... that was the last time I tried that one lol. But he lasted quite a while.


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## HGI (Oct 27, 2009)

Yea I have tones of baby crays, my marbles spawn like crazy.... and the grow fast, very good food source for fish.


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## Smoke (Sep 8, 2010)

Interesting... well I came upon a discovery recently... the 2 crayfish are still alive and well with my 2 Rhoms - they are just really good at hiding under the driftwood... I mean, they hide 24/7.

What I noticed, is that they steal big chunks of the Rhoms food and hide it under the driftwood... they latch onto it with their claws to protect it... problem is, they eat very little... so although they take the food away, it still causes a big waste in the tank because the crayfish can't even eat most of it...

So I think although it is true that they attempt to "scavenge", they end up creating a bigger problem because they kidnap the food and hide it out of sight, leaving it to rot and decay, causing ammonia spikes... not good









So I definitely would not recommend these guys for anything other than a food source, definitely not worthy as scavengers IMO.


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## duster1971 (Jan 23, 2010)

Yes crays are not the best addition to a tank with prized fish or plants. A common misconception about crayfish is that they are just scavengers as we see them scaveng in our tanks they are actualy great predators catching and eating many things in the wiild such as tadpoles minnows baby chubs and other crays and insects. They do scaveng in times of low food.

One more thing some snails such as apple and spixi snails will eat plants if they are not fed well. Just fyi.


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## Joe.G (Dec 20, 2010)

So you can just take there claws off and they will live like that? How do you take them off? I wanted them but I have seen them tear up tanks.


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