Freebie, not so much!

[tomh649]

This is my first post, so here I'll be introducing my tank

I started with getting the 6 gallon fluval edge, I picked up a black substrate called "Caribsea" supposed to help with shrimps and plants. I have a few plants, filter, heater and a co2 "system" for the plants.

I started with neon tetras, I love them. Then I decided to go to petco and get some cherry shrimps because their color pop really good with dark substrate.

Well I bought 9 because that's all the store had and 4 ghost shrimps, but that's not all! At the end the lady at petco found another "shrimp" without color, mostly a very pale brownish color. She didn't know if she should add it to the cherry shrimp or to the ghost shrimp. Well she couldn't decide, she gave it to me as a freebie and said if it grows or you don't want it, to just bring it back to the store and they would take it.

This was a week or so ago, now that it's growing non-stop!, I can tell it is a crayfish!!! Oh my.. Well everything was great until today, the cray wasn't bothering anyone and he was eating petite pellets that I use to feed my cherry shrimps and ghosts.

Oh, let me tell you.. the crayfish only has a single claw, it came like that and no idea what happened.

Today after coming home, I find the cray munching on one of my cherry shrimps. I can't say if the shrimp died and then the cray started eating it, or if the cray caught the cherry shrimp.

I'm very disappointed in this, since I love the cherry shrimps.

The cray is a little baby, it is not even fully grown yet.

Do anyone know of a solution for this to not happen again?

I think it is time to move the baby crayfish into the 55 gallon tank that is in the livingroom, I'm afraid it is going to be eaten by the adult size angel fish that I have in there. Otherwise, I'll have to post an ad somewhere and give it away.

What do you all think?

 

[convict360]

Could give it back to the woman, sounds like a no win scenario in any case

 

[Fat Homer]

The cray will also eventually grow its claw back, and once its grows larger, not only will your Cherry Red Shrimp be in danger, but also your tetras as well...

Basically it would seem you have 3 options as of right now: 1) Give the cray back to Petco 2) Put the cray in your larger tank and risk it getting eaten 3) Leave it where it is, and risk having only the cray left as it grows

 

[tomh649]

I ended up buying another fluval edge just for him right now, when it gets bigger and it is safe to be transferred to the big tank, I will move him.

Now I have three fluval edge tanks at home, after the cray is moved into his new home.. I'm thinking about breeding some type of shrimp. I love their colors.

Talking about the claw, it does have two claws.. I don't know if it grew back in no time or it was there all along and I never saw it until now. One of the claws is smaller than the other one.

I think I've made a better decision to keep everyone safe. If I return him to petco, who knows what they will do with him/her.. I don't want to risk it's life when I know I can take care of him/her until it's bigger and strong

 

[Fat Homer]

Good to hear you decided to setup another tank for your cray, but just a possible heads up... Depending on what you have in your big tank, your cray could end up as fish food especially after molting...

 

[Wailua Boy]

The thing about crayfish and fish are either the cray will injure your fish or fish will injure your cray.

 

[predatorkeeper87]

crays are pretty voracious predators man. watch any fish you even remotely think might be small enough to be grabbed.

 

[Desert Bus]

Crays are master level escape artists and doesn't the Fluval Edge have an open top?

 

[predatorkeeper87]

I had a crayfish in my 310 before I got my channel cat. He literally cut a local plant I had planted in the tank, grabbed on, floated to the top and climbed out of the tank. I watched it happen and couldn't believe it. Granted it was most likely just a coincidence of him digging the plant up and happening to grab on to it but it looked methodical, planned even lol.

 

[david b renz]

I had a similar experience. It turned out to be a blue arm rock prawn. Placed him in his own tank because he liked to eat everything else. He was a cool edition to the collection after I found out what he was and how to keep him. He ended up growing to be a jumbo prawn. 6-7" nose to tail.