Oscars and crayfish?

[registered]

So today I bought 4 small common crayfish (the brown ones) for $2.95 cuz I've had these before and they do an excelent job of cleaning the substrate, they even seem to eat fish poo lol, and they also add a nice look to the tank.

I tried to get the smallest ones cuz I also know they kill and eat fish, especially at night when fish sleep close to the substrate.

They seem to be doing okay but I noticed them charging and trying to attack Oscars as they get close, and now I'm worried... the fish seem to be aware and swim away quickly BUT if these things touch one of my Oscar god knows they'll be freakin boiled

My questions are, are Oscar strong enough to survive these "attacks"? was it a bad idea to put these in my tank? should I just take them out? I tried to add 50 ghost shrimp to clean the tank but the fish just ate them all.

I know the crayfish will eventually molt and the oscars will have them for dinner but I have no experience keeping these two together. I used to have red claw crayfish (extremely big and aggresive) mixed with Jack Dempseys and never had a problem... the crayfish did eat angelfish and pictus catfish tho... and Oscars don't seem to be as fast as Jack dempseys.

Here are the pictures so you can compare their sizes to my Oscars'

 

[Gruff Master]

Watch them, they tend to nip and/or eat small fish while they are resting at night. Your Os may be too big for this to be a problem. My fish love crayfish dinner.

 

[knifegill]

If the picture is true to life, the Oscar is probably too big to be permanently injured by the cray, and they will make a fine snack, indeed.

 

[registered]

Watch them, they tend to nip and/or eat small fish while they are resting at night. Your Os may be too big for this to be a problem. My fish love crayfish dinner.

That's what I'm afraid of... I can't watch them at night and I don't wanna wake up to a half-eaten Oscar sitting on the substrate - which is what happened to all my angel fish/pictus catfish.

Maybe take out 2 crayfish and keep the 2 smaller ones? The males have big pointed claws while the females are small and more rounded.

I have a small tank where I could keep these 2 crayfish until they molt and then just feed em to the Oscars while they're soft.

 

[fishy12]

If anything I see the O bothering or even killing the cray

 

[Younglin]

Your o's will kill and eat them pretty soon. Once they molt they are dinner. The crays won't do anything to fish that big.

 

[registered]

lmao I just found a crayfish with no legs lying on the sand

guess the question answered itself

 

[Younglin]

Could have been from an O or another cray.

 

[Gruff Master]

( I just saw your new post lol) Most likely the Oscars will eat them sooner or later. My fish eat them while their shells are still hard. I like them boiled and steamed myself.

 

[registered]

Could have been from an O or another cray.

Probably the Oscars... I just saw one of the albinos gettin close to one crayfish... the crayfish charged at him and the Oscar still bit its head lol.. like GTFO with ur small claws

Thanks guys I'm not worried now. I just found this small store close to my house with a huge stock of small crayfish and ghost shrimps, is it healthy for these Cichlids to feed em live ghost shrimp, like once a week to compliment their pellet diet? They seem to love chasing them and ate like 50 in about 20 min.