what kind?

[netobeto]

what invertibrates you'll have?

[Oddball]

Cherax quadricarinatus - red-claw cray
Cherax tenuimanus - marron
Procambarus sp. - FL blue cray
Potamonautes orbitospinus - Malawi blue crab

Here's a pair of red-claws. Male - top; Female (with larvae) - bottom

[netobeto]

those are cool

[piranha45]

bunch of red-claw crabs over the past 2 years, other than that, nothin.

[Veneer]

I have owned or currently own all of the following:

Molluscs: pond snails (Physa sp.), brown ramshorn snails (Planorbis corneus), olive nerites (Neritina sp.), apple snails (Pomacea paludosa), indigenous fingernail clams, and stream-caught (non-native) golden clams, Corbicula fluminea

Crayfish: common blue (Procambarus alleni) and an assortment of feeders (Procambarus spp. and Orconectes spp.)

Crabs: red claw crabs Sesarma bidens (actually truly brackish), and fiddlers (Uca sp., also brackish)

Shrimp: feeder ghosts (Palaemonetes paludosus) and various Macrobrachium spp. (including M. lanchesteri, M. rosenbergii, and M. duarii)

I hope to possess some Southeast Asian mussels & limpets, large South American Atyids, and Congolese Macrobrachium dux in the near future.

[rayman45]

alot
and all turned into food

[Oddball]

My eyesight's not so good anymore so, I keep the larger species. The red-claws are a foot long and males can weigh up to just over a pound. The marrons tip the scales over 2.5lbs and a length of 18+".
I'm negotiating with a research lab to obtain a trio of Astacopsis gouldii. These are the largest known crays worldwide. Average adult size is 12lbs with recorded individuals at over 20lbs.

[rayman45]

HOOK ME UP WITH A 1 LB CRAY

[piranha45]

King Cray!!!

[iheartfishies]

That's a huge cray.

I wonder what else they can eat at that size.:)

[Oddball]

Believe it or not these big boys primarily eat decomposing plant matter. They actually glean nutrients from the bacteria that breaks plant material down.

[piranha45]

heh, bummer. I suppose that's the diet of most (if not all) crays anyway though, right?

[Oddball]

I found a good substitute that's inexpensive. Commercial crayfish pellets run ~$17.50 for a 50lb bag. I checked the ingredients of the feed aussie cray farmers use and found a mix I can use that works out to 1/2 the cost of comm cray pellets. I mix 50% sinking catfish pellets with 50% rabbit pellets. I pay ~$18 for 100lbs of this food from an Ag supply outlet. The crays get more animal protein and calcium from the catfish pellets and more than enough plant protein from the rabbit pellets. The comm crayfish food is designed for the smaller and slower growing US species. I get great production rates with the blend I came up with.

[rayman45]

whats the word with the 1pound cary?

[PredatoryFishMagazine]

The only inverts I have right now are a banded coral shrimp, an emerald mithrax crab and about twenty unidentified hermit crabs.

[Oddball]

Rayman: I'll let everyone know when I have crays to sell. I have to get the numbers back up to over 200,000 and I have to have all my permits in place.

[gally]

I have a fiddler crab, countless snails and ghost shrimp, a land hermit crab (when his claws are out he measures about 4" across), and an africian giant millipede. I use to have hissing cockroaches, but they have passed on. Oh, I also have a rose haired tarantula and two cricket breeding tanks. I got tired of going to get crickets for my sudan plated lizard, 3 grass lizards, house gecko, two fire belly frogs and three african clawed frogs (not the dwarf variety) every other day.

Gally

[shovelnose]

whats the word with the 1pound cary?

Cray Kong

[bluedempsey]

bunch of red-claw crabs over the past 2 years, other than that, nothin.
the same here
expensive little meals

[straitjacketstar]

I've got a Cherax papuanus aka "Tiger Lobster" currently hangin out in my FM & Midas tank. He's a nasty lil ****er. Killed a couple of my mbuna and deformed one of my haps.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y277/straitjacketstar/Malawi/DSC02272-Cheraxpapuanus.jpg

[guppy]

Right now just 10g tank with 4 wood shrimp, about a dozen glass shrimp and six neon tetras in it. It was given to me yesterday. Free is GOOD!

[straitjacketstar]

Free is always good. :grinyes:

[milesj60]

What size fish would work well with a crayfish?

[Oddball]

None. Fish smaller than a cray WILL become dinner. Fish larger than a cray will eat the cray. There are filter feeding large shrimp that you could keep with docile fish. Atya gabonensis or vampire shrimp and Atya sp or wood shrimp could do well in a peaceful community tank.

[guppy]

Oddball is def right, sometimes even larger fish will get killed and eaten by a sneaky crayfish, Wood shrimp are very cool in a community tank and as little as $4 ea at times. they have very small claws and trippy little mittins they feed with.

[FlammingWoodChuck]

I have a Asian Tiger Lobster

[guppy]

Asian tiger lobster apparently is the market name for a crayfish named Cherax lorentzi (papua) which comes from Papua New Guinea.

[Oddball]

Cherax lorentzi and C. misolicus are still being researched. They're thought to be regionally different color varieties of Cherax papuanus.

[guppy]

That would explain why evertime they gave a listing they did it like this, Cherax lorentzi (sp. papua) or Cherax (sp. papuanus) lorentzi.

[joeytoe]

Ive been thinking about getting acouple Crays for my 120, but I recently bought a Marble Cat an dont know if he'd try an eat them. Plus I dont know if theyd be mean to my 4-line cats as well as to my marble cat.