Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

I was wondering why some of my Elodea plants were frayed at the leaves whereever there was new growth.

So I was sitting there watching my Cajun Dwarf Crayfishes... I watched as one climbed up the stalk of one of the Elodea plants....Then as it perched from the top of the plant where the new growth was it began snipping pieces from the edge of the individual leaves....The cray stopped once the front half of the leaf was devoured....It did this to one more leaf then returned to grazing off things laying about on top of the substrate....


Then I noticed a different cajun cray actually pulling a very small but growing and healthy Elodea plant undercover...there it nibbled on the end of the plant that was all new growth....It finished after a bit and as it left the cover its movement sort of dragged the small plant out with it ...(very little damage was done)....

So it seems that my Cajuns have a taste for fresh Egeria Densa leaves....
They do not seem interested in eating older growth and will only nibble on the tips of the leaves where I imagine the plant material is most tender.....


I fed them yesterday seemed as if they just wanted a snack....

And before someone says "Those cant be Cajun Crays" these are ones I recieved from the Petshrimp store(Thanks Mustafa)....They definitely perfer any other food that I give them...but will snack on my Egeria

Neat!

It's possible that dwarf crays eat tender plants if they don't have enough other food to eat. I went on vacation for a week once and when I came back I could see a significant decrease in java moss in their tanks. However, when I feed them normally they don't ever touch the java moss or the najas that's in their tanks. They absolutely love and "destroy" string and hair algae, though.

You nailed it right on the head.