Princess Abby

[revolutionhope]

Atop her palace..

 

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will

 

 

[waffle]

#MajesticAF

Any animosity toward the goldfish?

[revolutionhope]

Lol she's royal that's for sure.

Hard to say re agro - she does seem interested in it from time to time but the fish always swims away. Never seen her take a proper lunge yet.

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will

[waffle]

Interesting. How long has she been in there?

also, can't quite tell from pic, what species?

[revolutionhope]

Sorry I missed this post buddy . Just cherax destructor aka good ole yabby..

She got the goldfish yesterfay. I noticed she'd nipped part of the tail fin the day before and last night I found her happily munching away in her palace.

Can just see a little "debris" scattered around the bottom now that's all that is visible. On the plus side at least one of the bright pheno bloody Mary I put in are still safe and sound !

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will

[revolutionhope]

Updating the fairy tale of Abby the princess.. I had 2 boys in another tank alongside some native macrobrachium australianese courtesy of Paul Minett and the 2 male yabbies were duking it out badly one night roughly a week ago. So I caught one and moved him in with Abby and they're getting along like a house on fire.

 

She's already berried and I often see them hanging out together very close and whispering sweet nothings to each other so fingers crossed their relationship lasts the distance. I wonder now especially given the very small footprint of the tank (it is a 60 or 80 litre tall hexagon) do I sadly need to remove the male and put him elsewhere before the females eggs hatch? I have a pond he could hang out in with 2 decently sized goldfish but given Abby ate one recently I'm still not sure that's a great idea.

 

Any input from experienced Cray keepers would be appreciated :-)

 

Cheers,

 

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will

 

 

 

 

[revolutionhope]

Thought I'd update. The male has been removed and the female is now very close to having babies. I'm tempted to rush a few tub setups outdoors and try to raise as many of the young as I can but wonder how to do it cheaply with whatever bits I can find including preventing them from climbing out of their home.

Love and peace

Will

[ineke]

See if you can source an old bathtub Will. They are good as they hold a lot of water and the sides are too slippery to get a purchase on so they shouldn't be able to climb out. If you use too small a tub the water gets way too hot. I have a shell clam - child's play pit type and a deeper plastic sand pit but in summer even under shade the temp in them has been at least 33 that I've measured and probably higher . The Cherries have survived for 3-4 years out there but I've now put the Taitibees in a bath and that seems much more stable. 

Good luck with her 

[Baccus]

Probably an easier option than an old bath tub (especially ensuring all chemicals that may have been used to clean it over the years are well and truly gone), and possibly safer stability wise, would be a 500L tub/ trough from Bunnings. I got one for my two dogs and it is sturdy and has straight sides and being round there are no corners for the yabby's to brace against to shimmy up the sides.

The other bonus of the trough design that I got for my dogs is that the pond is above the ground and the sides are too high to allow cane toads in, where as cane toads have always still managed to get into the old bathtub I use as a pond.

[revolutionhope]

Assuming a large tank or container of water is shaded fully but positioned on or above the ground without the benefit of the cool earth - does anyone know how hot they can get during an Adelaide heatwave?@Ineke did you check the temp after a series of 40+ days? I'd Love to see a picture of your outdoor setups again please if possible! Especially showing the surrounds that might radiate heat or otherwise so I can get more of an idea about this subject and what to expect.

Also thanks for the suggestion@Baccus but i will have to look at budget options for these bubs I imagine any 500 litre container from Bunning might have would go for at least 3 figures.

Someone today gave me a link to a method of keeping them inside the rim of old car-tyres that worked surprisingly well so I know it doesn't need to be complicated. It seems yabbies must be pretty tolerant of ammonia etc.

Either way I just can't guess how hot a body of water might get if the temp is say min 25 and max 40+ for three days in a row for example.. we have had 15 days above 35c in a row and up to 6 days of 40c+ in a row in the past so it can get quite warm.

Love and peace

Will

[ineke]

@Baccus We don't have cane toads here in SA YET. I do agree though that the larger capacity container is the best and more stable but sometimes space can be an issue.

The plastic pond I use is on an elevated deck with normal decking so it has gaps between the slats giving some air current under the pond. I measured the 33 degrees after a week of hot weather in the high 30- 40 c. The Neos seem to thrive in there and continue to breed all year round even in our very cold winter. I have tested the water down to 8 degrees but again it could get colder in there. The pool holds  about 150 litres I think - I haven't actually measured it .

The old bath tub was filled and left for a week then emptied and refilled with RO with tubs of benibachi to help buffer the water, tubs with Monte Carlo like ground cover, lots of Java ferns and stem plants, frogbit for cover. As its an old bath I would think it would be equivalent to 2 X 4 foot tanks or slightly under. It is on the ground under a pergola and gets late afternoon sun for a short period. I have Taitibees in that one that have been in there since January this year and have a lot of berried girls in there now . They didn't breed over winter but this is their first year outside. I found the the second generation of Neos bred much better than the first so I guess it takes a while for them to adjust.. 

I feed weekly - mulberry leaves, a bit of snow and whatever commercial food I happen to have. Both ponds have crystal clear water with a nice covering of algae on the sides. I top up with RO as needed - I don't use tap water because of the amount of evaporation already causes the TDS to rise so plain RO works best - our tap water can be anywhere from 200-400 TDS depending on the time of year so way too high for the Taitibees.. 

I will try to get some better pictures Will but not sure if it will show up - best you come visit again sometime ?

[revolutionhope]

Please welcome into the world :-)

These are the cutest little baby critters I've seen. Already bigger than some shrimp I've purchased too :-)

Love and peace

Will

[waffle]

How're the bubs going? So cute!!

[revolutionhope]

How're the bubs going? So cute!!

Doing well thanks mate :-) There has to be over 100 of them and theyre growing rapidly.

Thought I put a video on here but I remember the upload failed and I forgot to sort it out. Let's try again.. seems that the progeny of the blue dad and grey/brown mum seem to be a fair mix of rich blues, grey/brown and weak blue.http://cloud.tapatalk.com/s/5a2e00a97e0c2/20171116_185947.mp4

Love and peace

Will

[jayc]

On 11/12/2017 at 2:35 PM, waffle said:

So cute!!

Not sure about cute.

 

On 15/11/2017 at 9:15 AM, revolutionhope said:

Love and peace

Does the above pic make anyone elses hair stand on end? 

It's like something out of an aliens movie. ?

Edited December 13, 2017 by jayc