My friend has a couple crays in His tank. They have been in there about 2 months now. While looking at them closley today, I noticed little white worms crawling on them. They were on there underside and on there beak, the spot between the eys. Anyone seen this before?
Parasite on crayfish
- Thread starter GJC
- Start date
Yeah i have, I kept some about 2 years back and the only thing that i can think of that they got it from was some blackworms that i fed them, sometimes i could see parasites swiming with the blackworms they kinda look like leeches ecept super small and white almost transparent. After about 2 weeks they died. Its kinda like they eat their insides or something because they would come out of the inside of the cray fish.
Yeah i had 2 that my nephews caught at a lake and the first died like the first week and the second died like 3 weeks later the only thing is i didnt try any meds like parasite clear, So your friend might have a chance to keep those mini lobsters alive.
Here's a video of some of those.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-ls6Q_ZpfJU
You'll notice them under certain conditions. I used to keep females w/ eggs in non-aerated shallow containers, with a piece of rock for them to get up to the water surface. The female crayfish go to the surface and fan the eggs, since the surface layer has more oxygen. When the oxygen level of the water gets low, the parasites get stressed, and come out and look for better conditions. They also exit when the water gets too warm (probably for the same oxygen reason), or when the host crayfish dies.
I'm not sure how to get rid of them completely, they live and lay eggs in the gills of the crayfish. In crayfish kept under heavily crowded conditions, they can get out of hand. I have caught crayfish from burrows that are positively loaded with them. Typically crayfish from streams and tank raised don't have them in any great number.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-ls6Q_ZpfJU
You'll notice them under certain conditions. I used to keep females w/ eggs in non-aerated shallow containers, with a piece of rock for them to get up to the water surface. The female crayfish go to the surface and fan the eggs, since the surface layer has more oxygen. When the oxygen level of the water gets low, the parasites get stressed, and come out and look for better conditions. They also exit when the water gets too warm (probably for the same oxygen reason), or when the host crayfish dies.
I'm not sure how to get rid of them completely, they live and lay eggs in the gills of the crayfish. In crayfish kept under heavily crowded conditions, they can get out of hand. I have caught crayfish from burrows that are positively loaded with them. Typically crayfish from streams and tank raised don't have them in any great number.
i've seen this to befor i would get rid of all of the crays with them but now i take out the heater in my tank when in cold water with some salt they seem to go away after they seem to be gone i change all of the water in the tank and clean it out with bleach to kill all of those little guys just make sure you rinse out all the bleach