# Possibly a new tank...



## Bear (Jun 8, 2006)

Well some of you remember the the nice little episode with my 40 gal cichlid tank (which is still going on, but Im doing daily water changes so they little guys should be fine), but now I am looking into getting a small, long 20 gal for inverts. I have really only seen a few diff things that could go in an invert fw tank: a few diff kinds of crab ( i love hermit crabs), crayfish, lobster, snails, clam, and shrimp.

Is there someone here that has done this? Would this tank require some dry land? or would it be ok to have a funn underwater tank with them? I am not 100% sure that this will happen, but if my cichlid tank comes out well (which it should) then the future will look very bright for this idea 

(does everyones fish love playing in the bubbles?)


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## harif87 (Jun 5, 2006)

Yeah you could have an invert tank without having land. Lobsters are just SW crays so you wont have any in your invert tank. snails are cool to have, but the thing is with crays is that you cant have more than one in a tank (unless you have a nicely sized tank) because the crayz are cannibals and do eat eachother and theeyre also very teretorrial. Your going to need plent of rocks and hiding spots for your crays and shrimp and for hermit crabs you should have a somewhat finer substrate. as far as clams go, you dont have much of a variety because most clams are SW only. but FW clams are good filter feeders so you wont really have to feed them so often. As far as shrimp go you have a bunch to choose from. They are good algae eaters but may need supplement food. i really dont think youll be able to have shrimp with crays becuase theyll probabbly get eaten by the crays....... anyways good luck with the tank. let us know your ideas!


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## flamingo (Nov 5, 2005)

There are endless possibilities in what you can do with a fw invert tank. The most basic stuff kept are; clams, shrimp, prawns, lobsters, crayfish, crabs, and similar type things.

There are also so many subspecies of the ugliest crayfish that'll have anyone amazed. Heck, I went to aquabid yesterday and saw an orange crayfish! Never even knew one existed, it would obviously be a great focal point invert in any tank.

Few ideas I think would be cool:

1.All shrimp tank; bumblebee shrimp, red cherry shrimp, ghost shrimp, and amano shrimp. All planted tank with moss like plants covering the bottoms and rocks.

2.Fiddler crab tank with a small land area and possibly mangrove plants, hibiscus, etc.

3. Or a tank dedicated for dwarf crayfish or just one orange or blue crayfish.

IMHO stay away from fw lobsters unless you have a big tank. Electric blue lobsters and tiger claw lobsters get WAY to big.

There are also a few types of freshwater clam, but honestly they're boring. You get them and they bury themselves instantly, whoopedeedoo. Lmao quite easy to keep but most of the time boring.

I know kinda wierd post but i'm bored and thought i'd point out some stuff I think you might like hehe/


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## harif87 (Jun 5, 2006)

^^^^^Yeah i used to have a green cray.. unfortunately i let my sister take him away. But now i got a blue cray, hes really amazing to watch when hes not hiding


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## Bear (Jun 8, 2006)

When i say cray, I guess I ment dwarfs (and should have said that sorry) b/c i know that what I plan on would be too small to have all of the little creatures together safely (with the big cray I mean). I figured a couple hermits, a couple small crabs (are there some that stay pretty small?), a couple of clams, a # of shrimps, then a snail or 2. 1 or 2 drawf crays, maybe even a tetra or 2.

i visited a new petstore that seems very cool, completely dedicated to tropical fishies, and all they had for crabs were "king crabs" which got too big. Do the fiddler crabs stay pretty small?


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## harif87 (Jun 5, 2006)

Well you dont need dwarfs, those get to about an inch big i think, but some grow to be about 5 inches, which is still pretty small for a cray so you would be able to keep those too


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## Angjo72 (Apr 3, 2006)

Heya!

There are some native US crays that are dwarf that reach up to 2 inches in size that would work and are easy to care for. I think I would try some of these smaller crays, you can have more then one of them in a 20 g long as well. A group of 5 or 6 would do well. This would be a good beginning to keeping inverts. Not all crays will eat each other(psst check their adult pincher, if they are over sized and huge, they are aggressive, if not they will be peaceful). 

Also, a very peaceful shrimp is the Vampire shrimp, which is a filter feeder and wont even harm the smallest of fry.

Here is a good site, that I like! http://www.franksaquarium.com/ Here are their crayfish.. http://www.franksaquarium.com/crayfish1.htm He has 2 or 3 peaceful species!
Also Dave C has a cool site with some good info.. http://www.shrimpcrabsandcrayfish.co.uk/

There are so many different options out there, you need to decide if you want aggressive inverts or peaceful ones and then I suggest reading up about whatever you choose online before buying any critters to put in your tank! Good luck!

Ang


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