Should I put them together??

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TwistedPenguin

TwistedPenguin

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Jan 21, 2008
2,551
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Oklahoma
I posted this on a Crayfish forum but they're not active at all and I may not get a response for quite a while so I'm posting here in case someone can help as I'm rather new to these guys. Here's the post:
I got the 2 Tiger crays a little while ago that I'd ordered from AquaBid. When he sent them the other day he told me the 'male' had lost an arm. I thought he meant the pincher but it's his whole arm. Will an entire arm grow back? Also little 1-Arm looks kind of beat up and is smaller. He thought that was the male and the bigger 2-armed cray was the female. I'm new to this but they both look female to me, am I right?
Also-should I put the 2 together in the 30 g tank? They'd been together & that had been my plan but now I'm not sure since 1 is missing an arm and I'm not sure if the other did it? Right now they're in different tanks. I need help deciding. Can you let me know the sexes also? Here's the pictures (I kept them big): (looks like they're both missing a smaller arm, too). Thank you if someone can help!

1Arm.jpg

2Arms.jpg
 
looks like the second one with the two claws has a shell rot, the red orange sore sorry dont know how to treat it, they both appear to be female to me. If kept healthier they should grow back all their missing parts within a few molts. which saler did you get them from so we don't buy from the same guy. good luck.

oh, keep them seperate until they heal up, the shell rot needs to be treated to both because after taking a second look the one missing a claw appearsa to have alittle of it were one of the legs are missing, then once they are nice and healthy put them together and keep a heavy eye on them and if they get aggresive towards each other keep them seperated.
 
read the post possible infection on my yabbie , those that have responded to this have offered two different treatments for the shell rot, both pretty inexspensive.
 
I've never seen shell rot as I'm new to these guys. I'll go look it up.
I had been going to put them both in a 30 g but I think I'll use a divided 20 g long tank instead. They're not near as big as I thought they'd be.
Thank you.
 
They have some serious shell rot, check out Aqua's post, I put up a link to treatment for that. And you'll need to get better pictures for the sexing, Cherax are really different from other species. The males' gonopods are just lil' nubs that are often hard to see, especially if not sexually mature yet. Oh, and all limbs regenerate over the course of several molts, so no worries, they'll be back.
 
Black_Sun, I've missed you! I just read you a post last night that you were on vacation? Hope you had fun. I started the salt baths yesterday according to your directions in an earlier post (thank you). When I 1st put them in it they rolled over to their sides and just laid there, I thought I'd killed them. I know they're not in the greatest of shape....but I did dog rescue for 20 years and this is 2nd nature to get a sick critter and make them better :-) It's actually what I like best about 'pets' so this is right up my alley. It makes me feel better than the 1 might be a male after all, but we'll see. I'll feed them like crazy and hope they molt soon and that the shell rot goes away. I'll get a better picture in a week or so and see if you can male or female for sure.
Thanks to everyone that answered!
 
Hey hey! Yea, well, sorta. I didn't go anywhere but I had a friend come up from Houston (why he wanted to come to the "dirty jerzey" I will never know lol). ^_^

Oh, that's all they did? The first time I had to do a salt bath, my Red Claw tried to take my finger off out of sheer annoyance for the warm, salty bath and having been plucked out of his tank. xD

Ah, I have/had gotten most of my animals that way. My cats, ferrets, fish, etc. They're almost all rescues, and I like that. You're making something better and giving it a good home. Actually, one of my favorite crays came to me via that route. When I bought her she only came with one claw and three legs with stress fractures in the shell. But months later, man, she turned into this beautiful, active crayfish. Made me feel good, probably made her feel better though lol

And yea, Cherax species are a pain to sex sometimes. But the female should have small circle looking spots on her third (from the back) set of walking legs, near the base of the leg. And the males should have little protrusions/appendages (like a bump or tip poking out from the leg a bit) on his last set of walking legs, near the base. Makes the male and female look the same from just the generic "flip and look" method, since normally people are used to those large appendages males have (but that's only for the N/S American and European crays). ^_^
 
Edit/Addition: You know what... after looking over my last few thread posts, I think I'm officially done talking about male crayfish's gonopods/maley bits. All my statements come out sounding pervy and weird lmao
 
:ROFL::ROFL:
They do sound a bit pervy (what a word lol) if you didn't know what kind of creature you were talking about :-D
Ok....there seems to be major 'debate' on whether to change the water in a crayfish tank. That's foreign to me as I've got Oscars and they need super clean water. 1 site owner said she hasn't changed water in cray tanks in over 4 yrs! :eek: No way I could force myself to do that. Another forum memeber said" not to keep the water too clean while they're healing" :screwy: That doesn't make sense to me. I was going to do as I would a 30 g fish tank-30%-50% weekly water changes. I've got fish in there also that I could stand to lose if need be. I usually keep nitrates on all my tanks under 10 ppm. How do you go about water changes?
 
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