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Anonymous
Sup /an/,

So I want to get a crayfish. I have a 20 gallon tank and I plan on taking out all my fake plants and putting in some logs and an upturned flowerpot. What should I know about feeding, water quality/temperature, substrate, etc.? Also, how many could conceivably fit in the space provided? Google has yielded a few results, but I find firsthand accounts are much more interesting and engaging.

Thanks amigos
>> Anonymous
I dunno specifically about crayfish but I used to have freshwater shrimp. Most animals like this are opportunistic scavengers and will eat just about anything they can get their little claws on, including any fish in the tank. The shrimp I had actually ate several of my fish after several years. I know that they need calcium, some salt, iodine, and several trace elements to thrive. Your best bet to get all of that would be to just buy some of the salt mix for a saltwater tank and mix it to a very low salinity, like say 1.002 specific gravity, that will give you just about everything that the crayfish may need as far as minerals and whatnot. I would recommend a temperature of no higher than 80 degrees Fahrenheit. I don't think substrate would matter but he will need someplace to hid.
>> Anonymous
>>270759
What kind of shrimp you had? Most shrimp (exluding some fairly rare macroshrimps) do not attack fish - they will only eat dead fish.
Also, they rarely need any trace elements. IIRC, iodine is not very beneficial at all - it forces them to molt, thus causing stress and death.
>> Anonymous
>>270771
>What kind of shrimp you had?

I forget, it's been years since I had him.

> Most shrimp (exluding some fairly rare macroshrimps) do not attack fish - they will only eat dead fish.

True, however the shrimps I had were approx 6 inches long when I got rid of them, (they were like 2 inches when I got them), and were from asia. I do not remember which kind they were but they were mean little fuckers and did go after any fish that went near the bottom 1/3rd of the aquarium. I lost catfish and flounder to them.

>Also, they rarely need any trace elements. IIRC, iodine is not very beneficial at all - it forces them to molt, thus causing stress and death.

Let me restate what I was trying to say about the iodine because true, adding an iodine supplement to the water will kill most crustaceans, and that is totally not the advice I was going for. They do require iodine in the water to molt, it is absolutely essential for molting, however the amount that they need is very very small, it is a trace element, which is why I recommend using a saltwater mixed very dilute, approx 1.002 or so. Since saltwater mix contains trace iodine they will have the iodine they need, but it wont be so much that it forces them into molting and therefore killing them.
>> Anonymous
>>270782
6 inch? Yeah. sonds like a macro. Those are almost crayfish-like shrimp, they will eat fish if able to catch.
>> Anonymous
I had a crayfish eat a bullfrog tadpole once. We usually fed it worms from the garden, but the tadpole was slow and...there.
>> Anonymous
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Get a clawshrimp. Pic related.