Limnopilos Naiyanetri

[Guba]

Does anyone know anything about these crabs? Are they completely freshwater?

[Koster]

They are completely freshwater. I dont know anything for sure on how they breed. Ive ordered 10 of these, so hope to have some news on that.

[Guba]

Please be sure to keep us posted on how they work out. Any info is good info.

[Koster]

There doing pretty good. 7 from the 10 are alive. I had to import them from germany.

I put some video's on my youtube page. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS_i64tTLeo

[Guba]

If you got them from Germany do you know if they're captive bred or wild caught? I have dial-up, it would take me forever to download any video. Info on your set-up would be appreciated.

[Mustafa]

They are all wild-caught. There is no reason to associate Germany with captive-bred animals when it comes to newly available species in the hobby (also newly available in Germany).

[Guba]

The reason I associate captive bred with germany is because here in the states we seem to be slow to catch on to new species. "Vampire" crabs are the perfect example, there's seems to be a lot of german experience with them based on the number of german internet posts. I can't hardly find any info on them in english, which leads me to believe that germans have more experience. So when crabs from asia are coming from germany, I had to ask.

[Mustafa]

The reason I associate captive bred with germany is because here in the states we seem to be slow to catch on to new species. "Vampire" crabs are the perfect example, there's seems to be a lot of german experience with them based on the number of german internet posts. I can't hardly find any info on them in english, which leads me to believe that germans have more experience. So when crabs from asia are coming from germany, I had to ask.

Yeah..I know the reasons why people associate "captive bred" with Germany, but even in Germany it's only a few people who actually breed crabs (and shrimp) on a regular basis, whereas a bunch of people just post questions or comments in forums ("ooooh...I want those guys, too!"). And lots of time the information posted on forums (including German forums) is wrong. It took those guys forever to figure out that the "mandarin crab" was not G. krathing and many of the "experts" there could not even distinguish the real "G. krathing" (from Thailand) from the "mandarin crab" even when they saw them side-by-side. They are totally different animals to the trained eye. I did not even bother posting a clarification in the German forums....

Oh yeah...my mandarin crabs (a pair) have produced a bunch of young which have already molted a few times.

[Guba]

Good to hear that you have some offspring from your Mandarin crabs! My Celebes jungle crab offspring have a carapace diameter of 1/2 inch now and seem to be doing well. So far I haven't seen any of the adult coloration coming in yet, they look like small knots of wood with legs. At the moment I'm setting up some additional aquariums (terrariums?) so that I can spread them out before they come to maturity. How many offspring do you think you may have? Is it hundreds like one guy claimed for Celebes crabs, or is it in the couple dozen or so range?

[Mustafa]

I would say "hundreds" is a gross exaggeration and is not even supported by the literature. I'd say 20-40 maybe in my case. It was hard to count them as they were piggy-backing on their mother and the female barely ever showed herself. Now the little guys are extremely well camouflaged and hiding most of the time so, again, it's hard to take a head count. Then again...my crabs are a different species and I can't really generalize on other Geosesarma species.