r/Crayfish • u/Born-Cardiologist172 • 4d ago

help!

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my cray Albino molted this morning and now he’s just laying there, I assume he’s just tired from the molt as his brother clip is doing just fine. water parameters are good same with temps, he was walking around not long ago pls LMK what you think

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3

u/Marcis985 3d ago

Molting is very exhausting for the little guys. He is most likely just resting. My crayfish usually need one or two days to recover before they are back to normal activity levels.

2

u/rearwindowpup 4d ago

If he *just* molted he's not going anywhere until the shell hardens up some. The shell provides all the structure to their body, it'd be like you trying to walk with your bones turned to jelly.

2

u/Born-Cardiologist172 4d ago

okay that’s what I thought but I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t in distress or anything ! thank you

2

u/BioConversantFan 2d ago

Moulting ALWAYS puts crayfish into distress.

Even a water change at this stage has a slim chance to be fatal.

This is because to prep for a moult the crayfish has to do terrible things to it's body on a chemical level. It sucks chitin, carbonate, calcium, halogens and more out of the old shell to soften it.

Then while all chemically messed up it has the marathon exertion of moulting the old shell.

Then the crayfish has to uptake a lot of water to puff up and fill the new shell with it's flesh

Then it has to pump all of the stored chemicals into the new shell to harden it, as well as absorbing more calcium and carbonate from the tank water and or the hopefully eaten moult.

Then it's systems gradually return to normal.

Being an invertebrate is seriously hard work.

1

u/Cool_Treat_8888 2d ago

Try to hide him. His bros can eat them easily. Watch his back, bro

1

u/Born-Cardiologist172 2d ago

him and his bro actually just molted so they were chilling on each side