Crayfish acting strange? Could it be a molt or worse?

Phei

Feeder Fish
Jul 12, 2014
4
0
0
TX
Hello guys, I just joined this forum and I was wondering if i could get some help with my crayfish. I recently caught a red swamp crayfish and converted my 35gal community tank into a mansion for a single male crayfish. I preserved the cycle by using the same gravel and filter material. Current tank reading are Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 5. I have been feeding him a varied diet of greens, algae pellets and Nori. I use iodine at the half a marine dose rule and have cuprisorb in the filter to remove any copper.

Up until a few days ago he was doing just fine, very active eating well then all of a sudden he began to act different. He seems very stiff and leans to the side when standing still. He holds his claws out in front of him in a strange stiff posture and often stand up very tall on his legs and sits on his curled tail. He just seems very clumsy and poorly coordinated? He still has a big appetite but he just seems very stiff. Is he getting ready to molt or is this the dreaded crayfish plague?

He is also absolutely covered in little clearish/white worms which I've read are not really harmful but he must have over 80 of them on him and i'm not sure thats really a good thing.

Thanks for any help you guys can offer! I'm far more used to taking care of bettas and other tropical fish so crayfish are a new experience for me.
 

Phei

Feeder Fish
Jul 12, 2014
4
0
0
TX
Update: Big improvements!!!

So I made several big changes that seemed to have helped this situation.

One was I bought an ammonia alert tag which showed me I was getting very tiny spikes of ammonia. Puzzled as to why I increased my cleaning schedule and discovered my crawfish had been hoarding the food meant to feed the tanks nerite snails and hiding it in a burrow he had dug behind the internal filter. It had all rotted and was causing the tanks ammonia to rise slowly.

Next I removed the cuprisorb from the filter and his stiffness and imbalance went away. The only thing I can figure is it was maybe removing something essential from the water and not just copper.

I also bought a much taller aquarium decoration and he spends all night hanging on it. Giving him something to crawl out of the water on has made him a much happier crawfish.
 
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