Hi,
I have a 20L tank of rainbow shiners. Good, healthy fish, but they tend to stay at the surface instead of "owning" the entire aquarium. I wanted to put in something to make the bottom more interesting and thought of crayfish. Two questions for the group pros:
1) In the evening the shiners settle to the bottom. Would the crayfish snatch and eat them?
2) How are crayfish as scavengers in the tank? Not that much would make it to the bottom - the shiners are pretty efficient eaters and nothing I drop in gets past them.
3) What do you usually feed captive crayfish?
Thanks. Sorry if the questions seem elementry.
Mixing Shiners and Crayfish
Started by
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, Jan 19 2009 05:21 PM
9 replies to this topic
#2
Guest_UncleWillie_*
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Posted 19 January 2009 - 05:38 PM
No pro here, but I can just give my experience.
There are numerous posts on the forum about keeping crayfish. So do a search and you will find tons of info.
I currently keep crayfish in a 20 gal long with blacknose dace. These guys are too quick to be harmed by my crayfish (which are only about 3'' right now). My shiners never settled to the bottom, so they were no problem. Now, crayfish are known to snag a sleeping fish, but I have not had problems (knock on wood). I also keep them well-fed, which helps.
They are great at getting uneaten food. They will re-arrange you substrate to their liking to make hiding spots and grab food. I use sinking wafers (both algae and meat/algae mixed). Wafers tend to be too large for the fish to carry off, allowing the cray to find it and have something to eat.
I love my crays and wish I have more tanks for them. Unless you have a very large cray that does not get enough food, I think your shiners will be too fast for it.
There are numerous posts on the forum about keeping crayfish. So do a search and you will find tons of info.
I currently keep crayfish in a 20 gal long with blacknose dace. These guys are too quick to be harmed by my crayfish (which are only about 3'' right now). My shiners never settled to the bottom, so they were no problem. Now, crayfish are known to snag a sleeping fish, but I have not had problems (knock on wood). I also keep them well-fed, which helps.
They are great at getting uneaten food. They will re-arrange you substrate to their liking to make hiding spots and grab food. I use sinking wafers (both algae and meat/algae mixed). Wafers tend to be too large for the fish to carry off, allowing the cray to find it and have something to eat.
I love my crays and wish I have more tanks for them. Unless you have a very large cray that does not get enough food, I think your shiners will be too fast for it.
#3
Guest_dsaavedra_*
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Posted 19 January 2009 - 05:51 PM
i have 4 golden shiners along with my crawfish, and they have never had any encounters.
my crawfish occasionally will nip at my mudminnows if they get too close (they're kind of instigators) but the shiners are fine. i think yours will be too.
as for food for crawfish, i've seen mine eat frozen chunks of tuna, algae wafers, and shrimp pellets.
i have made a cave out of flat rocks that my crawfish likes to hide inside, and all i do is drop some food in front of the cave and he'll come out, grab it, and go back in to eat.
my crawfish occasionally will nip at my mudminnows if they get too close (they're kind of instigators) but the shiners are fine. i think yours will be too.
as for food for crawfish, i've seen mine eat frozen chunks of tuna, algae wafers, and shrimp pellets.
i have made a cave out of flat rocks that my crawfish likes to hide inside, and all i do is drop some food in front of the cave and he'll come out, grab it, and go back in to eat.
#4
Guest_crb1701_*
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Posted 19 January 2009 - 07:06 PM
Thanks for the information. That gives me confidence to get some crays!
#5
Guest_crb1701_*
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Posted 19 January 2009 - 07:09 PM
I currently keep crayfish in a 20 gal long with blacknose dace. These guys are too quick to be harmed by my crayfish (which are only about 3'' right now). My shiners never settled to the bottom, so they were no problem. Now, crayfish are known to snag a sleeping fish, but I have not had problems (knock on wood).
How do your dace sleep? I'm surprised they don't settle to the bottom when all the lights go out.
#6
Guest_schambers_*
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Posted 19 January 2009 - 08:03 PM
Hi,
I have a 20L tank of rainbow shiners. Good, healthy fish, but they tend to stay at the surface instead of "owning" the entire aquarium. I wanted to put in something to make the bottom more interesting and thought of crayfish. Two questions for the group pros:
1) In the evening the shiners settle to the bottom. Would the crayfish snatch and eat them?
If the crayfish get hungry, they will. It also depends on the crayfish. Some are more aggressive than others.
2) How are crayfish as scavengers in the tank? Not that much would make it to the bottom - the shiners are pretty efficient eaters and nothing I drop in gets past them.
They are great scavengers, if you feed them sinking type foods they will get plenty to eat.
3) What do you usually feed captive crayfish?
Thanks. Sorry if the questions seem elementry.
Everything that I have ever thought crayfish might like to eat, they have. I've seen them eat sinking fish foods - pellets and wafers, frozen food packaged for fish and human, zucchini, dead fish, you name it. If you have live plants, make sure to feed them some algae wafers sometimes and they'll be less likely to eat your plants.
#7
Michael Wolfe
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Posted 19 January 2009 - 09:57 PM
1) In the evening the shiners settle to the bottom. Would the crayfish snatch and eat them?
2) How are crayfish as scavengers in the tank? Not that much would make it to the bottom - the shiners are pretty efficient eaters and nothing I drop in gets past them.
3) What do you usually feed captive crayfish?
Just to add a counter point... based on my personal experience...
1) Yes, crayfish will eat minnows at night.
2) Crays will get enough food... if you don't feed them they will scavange... but they will also eat sleeping fish... if you feed them enough so that they have no interest in fish, then they don't really need to scavange.
3) My small, sleeping fish
Crayfish are great, but I have never seen a situation that really worked out best for the fish...
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin
#8
Guest_bart_*
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Posted 19 January 2009 - 10:09 PM
All this being said, how do crays of different sizes do together? Are they aggressive towards each other or can they coexist peacefully? I picture the biggest one with a disembodied claw in each of it's pincers owning the tank. 
I might set up small rock pile tank for some crays. They are really cool but I like my fish way too much to risk any wayward pinchings.
I might set up small rock pile tank for some crays. They are really cool but I like my fish way too much to risk any wayward pinchings.
Edited by bart, 19 January 2009 - 10:10 PM.
#9
Guest_schambers_*
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Posted 19 January 2009 - 11:24 PM
All this being said, how do crays of different sizes do together? Are they aggressive towards each other or can they coexist peacefully? I picture the biggest one with a disembodied claw in each of it's pincers owning the tank.
Not usually. The most that can be hoped for is that they ignore each other. If there are enough hiding places several may coexist. They may even mate. I had some that mated, but the male harassed two females to death. They weren't able to get away from him.
#10
Guest_gzeiger_*
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Posted 20 January 2009 - 04:32 AM
I've had a crayfish eat all my fish before over a period of just a few days. Now I have a 4" one in a tank full of lazy bottom-dwelling Elassoma and they get along great. The cray grew from just about 1/4" in the tank.
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