My little Ninja!

[Minkness]

Soooooo, I have an awful track record with aquatics. Usually can kill anything in a month or 3. Longest lived fish was a 5 year old female beta....no idea how she made it, but she is missed. Other betas, no matter how well I tried, always died x.x

Well, a while ago I tried again and got a blue fresh water lobster.

He started out pretty small and I kept him in a 3 gallon kritter keeper with a crappy filter. He amazed me and thrived! So, he was moved to my 5 gallon hex tank that I was trying to keep shrimp in. (All but 2 ghost shrimp perished....sadness). He continued to do very well and has shown a good bit of personality as well!

Seeing as how an adult ahould be kept in a 20 long and he was in a cramped 5 gallon hex, I decided to give him an upgrade. He's far from full grown (should get 6-8 inches) so a standard 10 gallon is perfect for now. I also got some small gold fish to give the bigger tank some movement, but because I went the cheap rout, I got feeders who will be in quarintine for a while with treated water to help with any disease or parasites they may have before being introduced to this tank.

Anyway, here are some pics!!!

[Bandit]

Awesome. He's beautiful. I really like keeping freshwater fish, but I don't really have the time/money to keep up with it these days. I still have my 29g with four fish still living in it. I'm not adding anything though, just gonna let it die out and take it down.

However, the fish still in there are possibly immortal. The three Zebra Loaches have been in there around 6 years, I believe (maybe a bit longer). I've had my Rainbow Shark for 10.5 years. No clue how he is still alive.

[prairiepanda]

Nice! I have had a couple crayfish in the past(like mini lobsters, stay small). The first time I got one, I didn't know that they can climb the silicone in the corners of the aquarium, so I had no lid on the tank. Couple weeks later I found him all dried out in a closet :( I got a lid for the tank; a typical aquarium hood with a feeding flap. Well, my second crayfish escaped through the feeding flap. Luckily I was there when he did it and was able to get him back into the tank. After that I got a lid designed for reptiles, which worked perfectly. I had Captain Crunch for 5 years, and had to rehome him when I moved for school. Haven't heard anything about him since then.

[Minkness]

Yup. Sneaky little bastards lol.

The lid I got for the tank has a huuuuge opening in the back. No joke, used duct tape and cut a small area for the place the filter and heater cords go lol

[reptiledude987]

Be careful with the goldfish. their feces have higher amonia levels than other fish and I would hate to see them cause the end of that awesome little pincher.

[trailblazer295]

What reptiledude said, goldies are poop machines.

[Minkness]

I'll keep that in mind amd do more regular water changes. Though honestly I'll be surprised if they live. They are cheap feeder fish for one, amd for two, he may eat them before theybmake too much of a mess lol.

[prairiepanda]

I would think they'll get eaten before their poop starts to become a problem. Once they're gone, however, I would suggest switching to something else. My crayfish lived with a wide variety of other critters that I had caught from the same location(I attempted to replicate the aquatic ecosystem from that location as closely as possible) and everything stayed in balance quite nicely except for the fish. Everything ate the fish. Even the fish ate each other. Eventually I gave up on re-stocking the fish and replaced them with salmon pellets, which all the fish-eaters happily ate. Just one little minnow survived the entire time I had the tank going.

[Sasha2]

I love those electric blue crayfish, they had some at our local petshop but Ive had wild caught crayfish and they are destructive, and eat everything thats catchable.

I only keep two small tanks going now, a betta and an albino african clawed frog who is hand fed, he is just the wierdest creature Ive ever kept.

[Minkness]

Yup, I feed a combo of ciclid pellets, bottom feeder pellets, and algea eater pellets. I haven't tried any fish in with my guy yet so these feeders will be a first. If he eats them, all I have lost is 35 cents per fish. Regardless, all feeder fish I bring in will go into the quarintine tank for a while first since I have a full spectrum of medication in the water that includes stress coat, melafix, and an anti parasitic to fight against anything a feeder fish may have before being introduced into the tank with my Ninja. The tank is HIS, so he can distroy or eat whatever he wants! Spoiled little critter...like most of my pets generally are lol.

[reptiledude987]

I'll keep that in mind amd do more regular water changes. Though honestly I'll be surprised if they live. They are cheap feeder fish for one, amd for two, he may eat them before theybmake too much of a mess lol.

Or at least theres a piece in your filter that removes amonia.

[Minkness]

I was told by someone Inwork with that putting a 20 gallon filter kn my 10 gallon tank will also help with that. Is that true?

[reptiledude987]

that is only going to increase the flow rate. Its about what filter medium are in the filter to determine what is being filtered out. the aquaclear filters worked great for me with my fresh water setups. It has a 3 stage filteration there is a sponge at the bottom for solids then charcoal for chemical filteration then an amonia packet to filter amonia spesifically

[Minkness]

Oooh, I'll look that up later when I get closer to adding the fish in with him. =)

[trailblazer295]

Aqua clears are awesome. You need the media to maintain beneficial bacteria to handle the bioload. And goldfish have a high load.