Yabbie, the King in its tank

This photo was taken in April this year. The last good photo of the yabbie I have shot. These days the yabbie doesn't like to come out from its "house" and I'm suspecting it has been hibernating or being inactive due to the cold water in winter. I loathe it but also loving it. Hate it for eating those fish that aren't supposed to eat, and not eating those that I gave. A rosy barb, "Red bean", a few sucking catfish and a snail perhaps (look at the evidence!). But I had this yabbie for a very long period of time. The first picture I have taken on my record was back in december last year.

I had about 2~3 yabbies initiately, because I had a mini freshwater crab earlier, and I thought it'll be fun having more crayfish in the tank. The crab is another fascinating side story. Although it didn't survived days after a suspected pincer injury from falling off the kitchen bench one day, and hid in my brother's wardrobe...

This yabbie then slowly got rid of the other yabbies, and months later when I bought a few smaller ones to be its new tankmates, but they too eventually died due to hunger or attacked? I'm not going to get anymore yabbies since, because I will not be able to find one that is as big as this one at the shops. To prove that it has grown over the year, here are two photos of its exoskeleton shells taken approaximately half years apart. One was taken in January and the other one in early July.


Did not have the measurements for the first picture but I have for the second one. It's 12cm long. Luckily I had them both taken in a same size regular take-away boxes so you can judge how much it had grown over a period of 6 months. The last photo was its third or fourth times had its old shell removed.