Canadian Tired
Arachnopeon
- Joined
- Sep 2, 2018
- Messages
- 9
I am attempting to keep Orconectes Rusticus (the rusty crayfish). Since in most parts it is considered an invasive species, there really is little information on how to keep them alive (though many recipes for cooking them or killing them en-mass).
I wanted to go over the events that led up to the creation of this page.
For one, I have never attempted to keep crustaceans, nor was I equipped to handle them in captivity once they were in my possession. No pump, no filter, water that I brought home with the animals from a polluted river near my location (which I wont divulge because I like my fishing spot).
The water was heavily contaminated with... Horrible things. weird arrow headed worms, red clay, human feces, hair algae and many other things that I was likely unable to perceive with the naked eye.
My theory was that I could use the materials that I had acquired to jump start my tank.
Day one through 5 everything was fine. I had 5 crayfish, one at 3" and three at 1", knowing that they are cannibalistic, I put them all in the same tank anyway. There had never been evidence of cannibalism in the enclosure, likely due to the rocks that I brought back being LOADED with detritus from the bottom of the creek.
However after day three I started feeling anxious about the 3" bugger and split them up, one of the little guys stayed in the enclosure and three went into a separate tank which I will discuss in a moment. (keep in mind that every day I went to the creek to fetch fresh water for them).
Then it rained. Stirred up the creek something fierce, yet i needed a water change regardless. I grabbed the water anyway... It was white (likely due to the die off of some bacteria)
I should say that during this period I had been working on a pump from scratch along with a filter so that I could eliminate my need for fresh water from the creek.
The enclosure of doom...
I placed hair algae in the second enclosure along with the three C.fish. then i secured a lid on the container (which had more than enough hiding spots). I then placed it out of the way in a dark location thinking that the algae was providing oxygen to my pe(s)ts.
The following day of course the three mini fresh water lobsters were on top of the rocks gasping for air on account of the oxygen being sucked out of the enclosure by the algae. I only knew this was what was going on because, sadly I had just finished learning that when algae was in the dark that it devours oxygen....
Being the fool I am I decided to do a water change at this point.
I should probably point out that crayfish are sensitive to something that at least I have been calling shell shock. (which could probably be exploited to limit their numbers where they are percieved as invasive) Negative temperature changes make young crayfish have seizures.
I suppose this is the point where I should bring up crayfish plague:
-crayfish are prone to flipping onto their backs unable to right themselves and perish quickly due to poor water quality, where upon they quickly die. This has been attributed to a fungus that is on the rusty crayfish, the fungus is lethal to european crayfish and australian crayfish so it is best not to mix the species in a tank (and why would you when they are aggressive mostly towards other species of crayfish anyway and it would likely lead to dead animals)
I learned that if mixing water for crayfish it is best to add warmer water to the existing tank rather than colder water as it will make less of a difference in the long run (a +5 degree difference will likely only raise the temperature 1 degree depending on the amount of water in the tank). However, ideally exact temperature matches are obviously less dangerous.
Bask to my lesson in my own stupidity...
To save the crayfish I placed them in a much larger enclosure (all 5) everything was fine for a day or two (now day 5). all of a sudden though one of them randomly died, I assumed that the water was the problem and performed a water change to save the other four, this almost instantly killed 2 more crayfish as I rose the water level to touch them...
(nitrite and ammonia and god knows what else claimed the poor things)
(because I am dumb)
Now I was down to 2 crayfish, Sadly a person said at this point that she would give me her fish pump at about this time. Currently I was using a water bottle gravity pump to provide air to my poor doomed crustaceans....
She never brought the thing down. Three days later of being up until 3AM to keep my water aerated/oxygenated manually with gravity pumps i woke to see the last two died...
I am sorry for this story.
To make matters worse, late that night a person came upstairs with a mouse on a glue trap begging me to do something about it. I did not know what to do, the poor thing. I drowned it too, but not before trying to get the poor thing off of the glue trap.
Moral of the story, dont take home pets without proper equipment, it requires two weeks to cycle a tank regardless of stolen water from a creek, and glue traps are INHUMANE!
I am sorry for my story...
I wanted to go over the events that led up to the creation of this page.
For one, I have never attempted to keep crustaceans, nor was I equipped to handle them in captivity once they were in my possession. No pump, no filter, water that I brought home with the animals from a polluted river near my location (which I wont divulge because I like my fishing spot).
The water was heavily contaminated with... Horrible things. weird arrow headed worms, red clay, human feces, hair algae and many other things that I was likely unable to perceive with the naked eye.
My theory was that I could use the materials that I had acquired to jump start my tank.
Day one through 5 everything was fine. I had 5 crayfish, one at 3" and three at 1", knowing that they are cannibalistic, I put them all in the same tank anyway. There had never been evidence of cannibalism in the enclosure, likely due to the rocks that I brought back being LOADED with detritus from the bottom of the creek.
However after day three I started feeling anxious about the 3" bugger and split them up, one of the little guys stayed in the enclosure and three went into a separate tank which I will discuss in a moment. (keep in mind that every day I went to the creek to fetch fresh water for them).
Then it rained. Stirred up the creek something fierce, yet i needed a water change regardless. I grabbed the water anyway... It was white (likely due to the die off of some bacteria)
I should say that during this period I had been working on a pump from scratch along with a filter so that I could eliminate my need for fresh water from the creek.
The enclosure of doom...
I placed hair algae in the second enclosure along with the three C.fish. then i secured a lid on the container (which had more than enough hiding spots). I then placed it out of the way in a dark location thinking that the algae was providing oxygen to my pe(s)ts.
The following day of course the three mini fresh water lobsters were on top of the rocks gasping for air on account of the oxygen being sucked out of the enclosure by the algae. I only knew this was what was going on because, sadly I had just finished learning that when algae was in the dark that it devours oxygen....
Being the fool I am I decided to do a water change at this point.
I should probably point out that crayfish are sensitive to something that at least I have been calling shell shock. (which could probably be exploited to limit their numbers where they are percieved as invasive) Negative temperature changes make young crayfish have seizures.
I suppose this is the point where I should bring up crayfish plague:
-crayfish are prone to flipping onto their backs unable to right themselves and perish quickly due to poor water quality, where upon they quickly die. This has been attributed to a fungus that is on the rusty crayfish, the fungus is lethal to european crayfish and australian crayfish so it is best not to mix the species in a tank (and why would you when they are aggressive mostly towards other species of crayfish anyway and it would likely lead to dead animals)
I learned that if mixing water for crayfish it is best to add warmer water to the existing tank rather than colder water as it will make less of a difference in the long run (a +5 degree difference will likely only raise the temperature 1 degree depending on the amount of water in the tank). However, ideally exact temperature matches are obviously less dangerous.
Bask to my lesson in my own stupidity...
To save the crayfish I placed them in a much larger enclosure (all 5) everything was fine for a day or two (now day 5). all of a sudden though one of them randomly died, I assumed that the water was the problem and performed a water change to save the other four, this almost instantly killed 2 more crayfish as I rose the water level to touch them...
(nitrite and ammonia and god knows what else claimed the poor things)
(because I am dumb)
Now I was down to 2 crayfish, Sadly a person said at this point that she would give me her fish pump at about this time. Currently I was using a water bottle gravity pump to provide air to my poor doomed crustaceans....
She never brought the thing down. Three days later of being up until 3AM to keep my water aerated/oxygenated manually with gravity pumps i woke to see the last two died...
I am sorry for this story.
To make matters worse, late that night a person came upstairs with a mouse on a glue trap begging me to do something about it. I did not know what to do, the poor thing. I drowned it too, but not before trying to get the poor thing off of the glue trap.
Moral of the story, dont take home pets without proper equipment, it requires two weeks to cycle a tank regardless of stolen water from a creek, and glue traps are INHUMANE!
I am sorry for my story...