Brown Crab

[MyRequiem]

Question.
When I started my fresh water tank 2 week ago I went and picked up some drift wood and sand from the river to speed up the cycling process. Today I was checking out my tank and testing the water when I saw a small brown crab under one of the pieces of drift wood picking tuff of the floor. The crab is about the size of a dime and brown. Does anybody know what type of crab this is? I don't have any fish in the tank yet. Would it be ok to keep him if so what kind of fish can I get? I'll try to get a pic.

thanks

[cdawson]

FW crabs are generally brackish and require marine sea salt in their water. It would be best to take the crab back to where it came from so it will survive. Unless you're going brackish and are going to provide land for the crab.
Careful what kind of driftwood you use some native driftwood in the US and Can. are toxic to fish (cedar mainly one of them).

[SimonWoodstock]

Cedar driftwood is toxic to fish? You dont want to know what i said to myself when i read that....this could be what was wrong. I need to check it out and make sure that wood i put in there a while back isn't cedar, im afraid it may be.

What exactly does it do to the water? Probably makes the water too acidic? If that is the case, my water tends to have a higher ph. Anyway, i am still going to go check it out right now.

[cdawson]

Turpinetine is dervied from the sap of cedar. Enuff said, we all know what that does to humans. I made this mistake awhile back (around may) when I brought home about 80 lbs of cedar driftwood back from harrison lake. It killed a couple neons and 4 harlequin rasboras before I figured out what was wrong. Look for an oily film on the top of the water, you can also identify it by taking it to a local lumber yard and having one of the guys there check it out. What exactly is wrong in your case? Post a new thread on this so we don't hijack this thread.

[SimonWoodstock]

Fish were getting sick out of nowhere, no changes to water or anything. 1 of them was only in the tank for about a week, the other for a month or so, so it may have brought something home with it from the pet store.

I looked at a piece i had to break off of it so it would fit into my tank and its definently cedar....its pretty old though. There is no oily film at the top of the tank, but i will probably take it out tonight when i get home to be safe. The water in the lake is being let down already here so i will go walking around and find another piece that isnt cedar....strange though, the lake is named Cedar Lake...:rolleyes: Im sure ill find another good piece though.