Warning... this thread is rated MA for crawfish and crawfish coitus...
I snapped these pics just now. The blue cray is a p. alleni male and the brown a female of the same species. The female molted a couple days ago and it seems the male has only now found his courage.
His blue color shows up better without the flash.
Yes, it's a horrible shot, but the oscar kept getting in the way of the camera. I thought the look on his face was priceless.
(The oscar is a baby at 2.5-3 inches. Crays are the natural food of oscars, but I'm doing an ad hoc experiment to see if the fish will leave these two alone as he/she ages. I'm helping out by not feeding the oscar any living fish or invert, only hikari biogold cichlid pellets, mysis, frozen bloodworms, etc, etc... I'm not even feeding earthworms. Yes, chances are the crays will be lunch one day, but I realize this and it's not a problem.)
My wife and I were lucky enough to actually see the female molt. She was on her back and Leah thought she was dying, but I was pretty sure it was a molt. And a minute later she erupts out of her old skin... I tried to film it but the lighting wasn't good enough. Amazing spectacle, though.
Edit: Big Vine, any chance of you posting your pics of the crawfish act, along with that narrative you wrote? It was priceless! (and the pics beat the hell outta mine!)
I snapped these pics just now. The blue cray is a p. alleni male and the brown a female of the same species. The female molted a couple days ago and it seems the male has only now found his courage.
His blue color shows up better without the flash.
Yes, it's a horrible shot, but the oscar kept getting in the way of the camera. I thought the look on his face was priceless.
(The oscar is a baby at 2.5-3 inches. Crays are the natural food of oscars, but I'm doing an ad hoc experiment to see if the fish will leave these two alone as he/she ages. I'm helping out by not feeding the oscar any living fish or invert, only hikari biogold cichlid pellets, mysis, frozen bloodworms, etc, etc... I'm not even feeding earthworms. Yes, chances are the crays will be lunch one day, but I realize this and it's not a problem.)
My wife and I were lucky enough to actually see the female molt. She was on her back and Leah thought she was dying, but I was pretty sure it was a molt. And a minute later she erupts out of her old skin... I tried to film it but the lighting wasn't good enough. Amazing spectacle, though.
Edit: Big Vine, any chance of you posting your pics of the crawfish act, along with that narrative you wrote? It was priceless! (and the pics beat the hell outta mine!)
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Thanks for sharing
