Can I mix shrimp and crayfish?
- Thread starter fishy12
- Start date
electric blues will more than likely eat the shrimp, they'll eat just about anything in there. there are other spieces of crays that are mellow though and wont touch the shrimp or any fish. marbled crays should be ok, they'll are very docile for a cray.
Yeah I tried the blue crays b4 with my cherry shrimps and had to feed my cray to my flower horn as a result of my anger towards the lost of 10 or so cherry. Also if you have a planted tank the cray tend to go on a rampage and destroy everything.
All crays are opportunistic feeders so if the cray can catch it--it'll get eaten. However, going with the cost benefit ratio of hunter to prey, it does seem less likely that a larger cray would bother with a tiny shrimp to much unless it just literally falls into one of its claws.
I have a few cherrys in a 10 G with lots of java moss one piece of drift wood and two marble crays
no fatalities and they been together for over 2 months now...
"knock on wood"
no fatalities and they been together for over 2 months now...
"knock on wood"
I've had two CPO's in a 20G with cherry shrimp for months now.. no known casualties, it is heavily planted enough that the shrimp can escape through the dense area in the middle, while the crays can mostly only patrol the perimeter. It hasn't reduced the amount of baby shrimp either.. I just don't think the crays are fast enough. I still wouldn't recommend putting them in with high-grade CRS though (obviously 
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)I had an electric blue crayfish. I put three ghost shrimp in with it hoping to provide the cray with some mental enrichment and a good meal. Instead I ended up with about 50 or more inbred shrimp who like to crawl all over the cray and snatch food straight from its mouth.
You should keep an eye on them. I had an incident a few years back where I put a regular common crayfish in the tank with a cherax blue lobster just for like 15 minutes(literally) and by the time I came back half the crayfishes body was eaten up.
I'm pretty sure Electric Blue Crayfish are either procambarus clarkii or allenii. I'm almost certain that both of them are aggressive.
If you want to have a crayfish in your tank, then I'd have to go with the marbled crayfish. Unless of course you have a very large tank(50-75G+), then it may be possible(very unluckly) to have enough shrimp in there so the crayfish won't eat all of them. If you have a species of shrimp that are very prolific like the red cherry shrimp (I've heard some people have had very prolific crystal reds aswell) or one that can camouflage like the Amano shrimp or the ghost shrimp.
If you do go with this route, I would put in the shrimp first and let them breed until you have 100+ (If you have a 75G then you could go as much start at 300) and then throw in a crayfish. But make sure you have a lot of foliage and and java moss (maybe even a marimo ball if you can find one). Theorectically this should work.
Having so many shrimp and letting a crayfish eat them may seem cruel to some people. But this is completely your choice.
It would also not be a good idea to have high quality crystal reds in there for obvious reasons.
If you want to have a crayfish in your tank, then I'd have to go with the marbled crayfish. Unless of course you have a very large tank(50-75G+), then it may be possible(very unluckly) to have enough shrimp in there so the crayfish won't eat all of them. If you have a species of shrimp that are very prolific like the red cherry shrimp (I've heard some people have had very prolific crystal reds aswell) or one that can camouflage like the Amano shrimp or the ghost shrimp.
If you do go with this route, I would put in the shrimp first and let them breed until you have 100+ (If you have a 75G then you could go as much start at 300) and then throw in a crayfish. But make sure you have a lot of foliage and and java moss (maybe even a marimo ball if you can find one). Theorectically this should work.
Having so many shrimp and letting a crayfish eat them may seem cruel to some people. But this is completely your choice.
It would also not be a good idea to have high quality crystal reds in there for obvious reasons.
My crays don't bother my shrimp. I have tons of breeding shrimp with about 10 juvies crays and an adult and they don't care at all. The shrimp even ride on the crays.