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will crayfish eat turtle waste? want to prevent my tank from dirtying.

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tekniq wrote:will crayfish eat turtle waste? want to prevent my tank from dirtying.

I kept crawfish in my tank with my turtle for awhile. Crawfish eat detritus, but unfortunately do not seem to enjoy turtle waste. They will eat excess turtle food.

I have found the reports that crawfish could potentially harm your turtle to be unfounded. That's not to say that it's impossible, but I have never seen it happen, and my crawfish was 4 inches long. RES prey on crawfish in the wild, so if you don't have a problem with your crawfish potentially getting eaten I don't think it's a bad idea. My turtle never ate a crawfish, but my crawfish did eat each other. Don't get more than one.

Anecdotally, I think crawfish are cute and fun to play with. They can come out of the water for a bit as long as their gills stay wet, so you can pick them up and hold them and stuff.

Basically all you can do for turtle waste is buy a good filter and get really good at changing out the tank water.

Contrary to the last post, I think it's a bad idea to add crayfish to a tank. Anything with claws can and will fight back when your turtle decides to eat it, which will happen, because turtles tend to eat everything in their tank, maybe not right away but eventually the idea will appeal to them. I don't think a crayfish could do much harm to a larger ( 6 in ch plus) turtle, but at that size, the crayfish would almost immediately become food so it would really serve no cleaning purpose.

If you're worried about the tank becoming too dirty too fast you can feed your turtle outside of its regular tank in a "feeding tank"

Another way to reduce the waste to water ratio is to get a larger tank with a filter that is rated for a tank 2-3x as large. If you have a 4 inch turtle in a ten gallon tank, nothing you do will keep the water clean, it's just too much turtle for too little water.

Also: I just looked at the pics of your set up. One way to reduce the waste would be to get rid of most of the rocks in the bottom, they trap debris and make it harder for the filter to do its job right. Also, add more water so your turtle has more room to swim, even hatchlings are great swimmers so you don't have to worry about him drowning, he'll love the extra space!

Crawfish are not strong enough to injure a turtle. Their pinches are actually weaker that what a human is capable of. It's hardly even painful.

Hatchlings are only the size of half dollars, I think crayfish can injure them. Certainly, it probably can't maim a turtle, but why risk it? As I said in my earlier post, the crayfish wouldn't serve the purpose tekniq wants it to-- cleaning the tank. Only a strong filter and an adequate size tank can do that.
Of course a crayfish is weaker than a human, that doesn't make it harmless. And what may not seem painful to your hand might be quite a bit more painful for a turtle that isn't even a quarter of the size of your palm.

It's best to err on the side of caution and not introduce crayfish to a turtle tank.

To add to what meg said. Crayfish contain something that can cause shell rot. It's true, wild turtles eat it, but still...wild turtles also hibernate, even though they run risk of dying, why risk it when it is not neccesary?

I wouldn't add a crawfish to a turtle tank. I have seen some sad reports of turtles going after the poor crawfish, tearing off a claw, & generally biting/nipping at it until the crawfish dies a slow and painful death.

Keep in mind also, that the more animals you have in a tank, the more the tank will dirty since the crawfish will also give off waste! If you want to keep a cleaner tank when feeding, feed your turtle in a dishpan of water outside of the aquarium & dispose of the water after each feeding. This works great & I have been doing this for years with Sheba very successfully.

the only reason i wanted to add something because i saw fungus growing on my turtle waste when it was just the turtle and the tank. i added a crayfish, and it just minds it own business, but theres a lot of poop in the tank, it looks like little pellets, but i dont know if its from my turtle or my crayfish

Sounds like the tank needs more frequent cleaning! If your filter won't pick up the waste (and they usually won't - they aren't designed to pick up solids, just to filter the water) you can get a turkey baster or little battery powered aquarium vacuum to pick up the solids in between the (frequent) water changes.