crayfish or shrimp
- Thread starter GooGirl
- Start date
Crayfish - many will eat fish, so you have to be careful about that. But some people keep them with fish that stick just to the upper level of the aquarium. I would suspect the crayfish you could catch have similar requirements / habits to the ones that are sold for aquariums.
Shrimp - the opposite problem here. Shrimp usually do fine with fish, but many fish will eat shrimp (especially smaller shrimp). There are some very fancy and attractive shrimp, which add some interest to the tank and are good little inhabitants.
Good source of info:
Freshwater Inverts and Amphibians: Freshwater Shrimp, Freshwater Snails, Frogs and Lobsters
The larger shrimp listed, the singapore flower shrimp, would probably do well with either of your current setups. I'm not sure how big a shrimp a molly would try to eat. I personally wouldn't have a crayfish with mollies or a betta. I'm pretty sure the cray could catch / eat the betta and I would suspect he would be able to catch a molly as well.
Shrimp - the opposite problem here. Shrimp usually do fine with fish, but many fish will eat shrimp (especially smaller shrimp). There are some very fancy and attractive shrimp, which add some interest to the tank and are good little inhabitants.
Good source of info:
Freshwater Inverts and Amphibians: Freshwater Shrimp, Freshwater Snails, Frogs and Lobsters
The larger shrimp listed, the singapore flower shrimp, would probably do well with either of your current setups. I'm not sure how big a shrimp a molly would try to eat. I personally wouldn't have a crayfish with mollies or a betta. I'm pretty sure the cray could catch / eat the betta and I would suspect he would be able to catch a molly as well.
I have a native caught crawdad out of the mississippi river. it's about 5 inches long now not including claws, and he is in a tank with a bunch of half inch long cichlid fry and he don't seem to bother them. i do hand feed it though. at feeding time he comes out of his hole and i put pellets right in front of him and give him the occational chunk of worm. i also have cherry shrimp in with my guppies. i think they all have advantages and disadvantages. crawdads get big and dig and rip things up and can catch and eat other fish. but i find them interesting and i think they have some personallity. as for the shrimp, they don't seem like the smartest critters in the world lol. but they do a heck of a job cleaning the tank and eating some algea. on the downside they can be picked on and eaten by other fish and they don't seem like the hardiest of critters. i belive though given the proper environment and proper care each of them can be rather interesting and colorful additions to the tank.
thats an idea but if there are no places for the fry to hide they will be eaten almost imediatly. i strip my females to save the young to sell. besides a few lighting upgrades and such, my cichlids pay for themselves. I have not spent a penny out of pocket for food for my tanks or other fish for my tanks in about 5 years. and they also paid for 2 of my tanks. i get a couple bucks per cichlid usually and a female can have between 25 and 50 fry at a time and for me i have about a 25-50% success rate. so say i get 25 fry to sell at 2 bucks each. thats 50 bucks and my food costs me 75 bucks for about a 2 year supply. that is one reason i recommend cichlids. especially if price is a factor. they want cheap fish and if u do some basic breeding they are very cheap to keep and u have 10,000 different species to choose from. and that is not an exageration. lake malawi has 6000 known species of cichlid. but with cichlids u cannot keep shrimp or cray fish. crayfish will live for a while but when they go to molt, the cichlids eat them when they are soft.
In my experiences, Crayfish are a PAIN to take care of. They are about the most messy thing ive ever kept. If you are up to cleaning the tank alot, go for it, because they are super cool, but if you cant put the time in to keep the tank clean it gets FILTHY fast. Id go with a cichlid tank. Much less messy and much more awesome 
i've never noticed my crayfish to be that messy. i hand feed it and it's just in a tank with fry now. i hand feed it and for the most part it just stays in it's cave. durring feeding time he comes out to the mouth of the cave t get his share. it may be because he is a wild caught crayfish and is alot more nervous about being exposed then a tank raised one, or it could be species too. we have rusty crayfish as an invasive species around here and they are alot more agressive and less fearful then the native crayfish.
mine is in a 30 gallon that gets a water change about once a month and i have not done a gravel vac in about 3-4 months. but i almost never cravel vac my tanks. but then again i only have 2 tanks with gravel and 1 of them is dirted and a gravel vac in that tank is an absolutly horrible idea lol. also my gravel is mixed with sand so there si not alot of space between the gravel for junk to settle. but in any event the tank is mostly spotless. there is some algae but i think that may be because of my lighting more then anything. and not so much type but duration. like today i think the lights have been on for about 18 hours. but thats my fault.