Crayfish with Africans?

[jcarson]

So been doing my research with this topic and getting mixed results, so asking the community that I feel I can trust with this question.

Can i keep a couple or 2 crayfish with my larger mbuna?
Planning on keeping a couple blue lobsters in a 75 with larger adult male mbuna.
Has anyone had experience with this?

 

[duanes]

I don't have experience with crayfish, and Mbuna but...
I recently (mid March) received a bucket with vampire crayfish and Andinoacara cichlids (both caught together in the same river in Panama).
I put the 3 crustaceans in a 180 gal tank with about a dozen cichlids, a Pleco and a goby
.
The Crayfish constantantly tried to grab the cichlids, but the Andinoacara easily shook them off.

More importantly the Crawdads were highly territorial and would fight whenever they met, to the point of tearing off limbs, and killing each other, in the 6 ft tank.
I saw them wandering around the tank until about a week ago.

They haven't been seen since, so whether or not they crawled out, killed each other in territorial disputes, or whether the cichlids ganged up and took them out in a concentrated, pack attack, I don't know.
There is a Crawdad lower mid left in the pic above
The tank is outside on the patio, so if they crawled out, they could easily disappear in leaf litter and been killed by the local fauna that live in the yard, everything from snakes, an feral cats, to large cane toads.
.

 

[HybridFinatic]

I might be able to keep 2 but definitely not a couple.

 

[HybridFinatic]

But in all serious I think Duane’s answered your question.

 

[tiger15]

The only chance you can have crayfish coexist with fish is to provide a lot of hiding places. Crayfish grow by shedding old shell, and are vulnerable before the new shell is hardened. So it need to retreat to crevices to go through the molting process in private. Crayfish are cannibal, and are vulnerable to not just fish but its own kind during molting. Crayfish will sneak on sleeping fish at night, but the fish have to be sick, weak or tiny to get caught. Normal fish will just dart away.