Feeding my silver wild caught crayfish?

[Lsey81]

Hello monster fish fam! Question...my children and I catch minnows and crayfish to feed to our Oscars and turtles...well my son happened to toss a crayfish into my arowana and id shark tank, my silver arowana is about 15 in long...should I worry about the crayfish damaging her? Or her having issues digesting it once she catches it? Thanks for any advice or info!

 

[Drstrangelove]

My concern would be organisms from the river water or in the crayfish, although your concerns could be highly valid as well. Most fish (upwards of 90%) in the wild have some sort of unwanted organisms (bacteria, virus or parasite) and I would expect crayfish are no different.

 

[alecrromine]

Not sure if there's any truth to this but I've heard that the types of parasite/virus/bacteria that inverts carry will not affect fish. You may be able to find more info on this. A friend of mine was feeding ghost shrimp to his fish and just tossed a bunch in. I asked about quarantine and sickness, he said you don't have to worry about qt with inverts because fish are in some way immune to what they carry. It's worth looking into though. Take it for what its worth he's a PhD student of biology

 

[Lsey81]

Thanks for the insight! I actually snagged the crayfish out of the tank put it in another...my paranoia got the best of me!