I picked this critter up the other day along with my driftwood and some minnows to feed my dinosaur fish (polypterus and ropefish). It was in the minnow tank and I asked about it. They said they come in regularly with the minnow shipments. The fish farm keeps these in the pond where they keep the minnows, I assume to do clean up duty.
She said she couldn't sell it as it wasn't inventory, but she could give him to me. Fine with me
On my guppy board there is a disagreement as to what it is, some say prawn, others say cray, others are clueless. It's probably 4" end to end.
It doesn't have the body shape of the M. dayanum (prawn) that I'm keeping. But as Newjohn said, the body shape looks exactly like a crayfish, without it's claws.
Yep. That is a cray that lost a fight and got out with its life. Next molt he'll have some small claws. When they are injurred like that they molt quickly, usually within a week.
Your ropefish would tear it apart very quickly. I once saw one at an lfs finishing off a "blue lobster" that was quite a bit larger than I would have expected it to tackle. (Apparently the owner of the lfs didn't think it was big enough either, but the ropefish had other ideas...) Crayfish are part of their natural diet. Incidentally, the deceased crayfish had both claws intact at the time. They didn't help it a bit.
Ropefish and bichirs have a lot of individuality (and personality!). I had a ropefish for a few years who was kept in a tank with several ghost shrimp, and he never bothered them. He tended to hide out quite a bit during the day, and in addition to the self-sustaining population of wild guppies, I used to hand feed him small chunks of tubifex cubes. He accidentally got a mouthful of finger once - his sharp teeth left divits in my nail! He kept the guppy population in check, but never hurt the shrimp. So as long as he has plenty of easier prey to pick off I doubt they'd be too interested in your recovering cray.
